22 July 2007

My Official Harry Potter & The Deathly hallows Review

I started reading this book under a funk. The sheer amount of crap that had been leaked onto the internet this week was depressing. it wasn't that the book itself was being leaked, it was the futility of the leaking. I mean, what were these people trying to do? Curb the amount of money the publishers were gleaning from the books? Doubtful.

No, it was willy-battles in the showers all over again. The 'I've read it before you - ner-ner-ne-ner-ner' mentality that just proves that there really are sadder fucks out there than die-hard HP fans as myself

About 2 days after the last book came out t-shirt companies were printing 'Snape Kills Dumbledore' t-shirts, professing that they'd saved readers from wasting a few days of their lives reading the latest HP book. So, what? You want the readers to save the £6 from the book and spend that £6 on your poorly designed t-shirt? It's not the conclusion, it's the journey. there were videos on the web of fuckwits driving past barnes & Nobles shouting "SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE" and laughing like gibbons at the upset faces they left behind. But what they didn't capture on their crappy £100 camcorders is the fact that everyone they told still went into the store and bought the book anyway. Simply hearing someone shouting out a possible ending isn't enough to want us to know how that possible ending came about.

I knew how this one ended. I saw the last 3 words. I still wanted to experience the journey that led to those words.

And I'm glad the funk lifted. the first thing that starts to drag about this book is that there's no real Hogwarts, not in the regular sense. It's in the book, and forms the basis for the book's excellent climax, but Harry doesn't spend a second of him time there in studies. It appears that his oath at the end of HBP held fast.

Harry is in search of the Horcruxes, the fragments of Voldemort's soul that, if left unchecked, would mean that Voldemort can return to life many times over. On his journey to find the horcruxes, Harry becomes distracted by another quest, that of the Deathly Hallows, 3 items linked by a simple symbol, apparently able to render their holder invinvible. It's possible that Voldemort had learned of the deathly hallows, but in his greed to find the hallows, has he left his Horcruxes unguarded?

There are times when it dragged, and I honestly feared for the pace of the book, as well as for the well-being of some of the characters, but after the necessary lull in the action (JK does love her exposition) the action started up again and just.didn't stop.

Some rumours were true, some were laughably pathetic. One was engageingly enigmatic, which means William Hill is going to have a perplexing time handing out payments.

9.5/10

My Final rating;

DH
GoF
OotP
HBP
PoA
CoS
PS(SS)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'll have to defer to you, Petester, because I'm still a newbie to the wizarding world of HP. As a reader, however, I loved this book. It's the only one I've read of the series but it was so good that I just may read them all now.

Just may, I said. ;)