A Hallowed Ending

My copy of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows arrived at 7am on Saturday morning. Rather than go back to sleep, I started reading it. My word, JK Rowling certainly saved the best for last. There are 37 chapters in the book and of those, only 4 can really be counted as NOT being edge of your seat intense stuff.

The decision not to set this book in Hogwarts always meant that all bets are off. I never expected the book to be so relentless in its action filled narrative though. Unlike the previous two books, there is precious little meandering in the opening section, it hits the ground running with death and severe injury by the start of chapter 3 to let the reader know that this time she means business.

It was very clever of Rowling to "confirm" the deaths of two characters in the final installment. Multiply by that by 25 and you're somewhere in the ballpark. In the final act of the book when the action is back at Hogwarts, several of the deaths made me pause and say "wow JK, you cold bitch".

The final chapter of the book is, according to a documentary I watched when I was first getting into the books, the first thing she wrote for the series, to prove to herself she could do it. Having tied up all the narrative strands from the series in the chapter prior to the end, it was a fitting and actually very moving end to the book. I may have even cried.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about this book in the coming days and weeks but for now, that's all.

Countdown to The Deathly Hallows

With the final Harry Potter book mere hours away (some people already of course have their copies due to "oversights" by online retailers), the internet is in a frenzy of speculation as to what it will contain. You can find them here, here, here, and here. Also there are predictions here, here, here, here, here,and here.

Judging by the titles of these blog entries linked above, the focus is on who will die, who is good and who is not and the purpose of the horcruxes. I say judging by the title because I am not reading any further than that on any of them. My book had better arrive from Amazon tomorrow morning (especially as they charged me for it LAST Saturday and it's been 'ready to dispatch' ever since) and once I have finished the book, then I will go back and read what everyone was thinking.