Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows arrived by post yesterday. Parker brought it in the house and I didn't see it until after 3:00 pm. I got in a couple of hours straight, then interrupted reading (Ken told the boys to quit with the GameCube, already, and promptly left me to deal with them - thanks, Honey!) for another hour and half. We went out to dinner (Noodles, one of our favorites), then for an after-dinner walk, then back home. I nestled in with my book and 2 boys leaping off and on my reading sofa in the master bedroom while they watched Pink Panther on tv. Ken joined them and they settled on the bed. Off to bed with the lot of them around 8:30, and it was just me and Harry. I attempted sleep around 12:30 am. Tossed and turned for an hour, and flipped the reading light back on around 1:30 am.
I finally put the book down around 3 am and slept like the dead. Strange dreams. The boys brought me 'bressist in bed'; a lovely, plated breakfast of 2 slices of toast, a knife, jam, napkin and a half cup of water 'So we won't spill it!' at 7:45 am. Parker cut one slice in half after I offered to share my breakfast with them. We ate in bed, heads bent over the tray to try to avoid crumbs in bed. I told them to find Daddy to ask him when he is going to make waffles, and leapt back out of bed to start reading again. They came back up, and to avoid pleas of GameCube (which they played for HOURS yesterday, so no GameCube today), I put on PBS and luckily, Curious George was featured. So, at 8:15, I again became lost in Harry's world. I was on page 726, so didn't have much left to read. I finished the book in half an hour, re-reading quite a bit as I went, tears streaming down my face at some points.
I am so sad that there will be no more Harry Potter books. They have kept me spellbound since 1998, when I read it aloud to my then 9 year old Godson, his 6 year old brother, and my 10 year old niece while on a trip to visit my Godson's family in Chicago.
These 7 books got the whole planet reading again. And that is a very, very good thing.
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7 comments:
The Snape's death/pensieve scene struck me as the only clunky plot device in an otherwise very fun read.
-J.
But how else could Snape have passed his memories of his love of Harry's mother to Harry at his death? This is a Fairy tale for children, too; Rowling had to use some simplified plot techniques crunched together or the book would have been 2000 pages long.
I told Ken right after I started this book, "You watch, Snape is a Good Guy in the end." I also figured out that Harry had the powerful wand when he took 2 wands during the fight with Draco. I think that was kind of obvious. But probably not to a youngster reading the book...
I really enjoyed the redemption of the Malfoy line in Draco - the enduring faith that people can change.
I thought the Snape thing was a bit clunky, but what really annoyed me was the opening scene, when they brought in a new teacher, only to kill her off a few pages later.
That said, I still loved the book. The few scenes that I have quibbles with weren't enough to detract from my thorough enjoyment.
I'm sad this has ended, too. I know I can re-read them, but they don't have the same breathless "what's going to happen next" quality to them now.
I'll happily admit to a few tears, too. The Dobby scene was really hard to read.
Julia YES totally agree with the killing-off-teacher-thing! I had a boyfriend who wrote best sellers and he started all of them off with a gratuitous grisly murder. One time he got pissed off by some guy driving 'slow in the fast lane'. Next book? Killed off some putz for driving slow in the fast lane by the 2nd page!
The dead Muggle Studies teacher reminded me of Star Trek when a character you'd never seen before would go down with Spock and Kirk. You just KNEW he'd be toast.
-J.
I just finished it today.
The children kept screeching throughout. Heaven forbid I sit down and read.
I think we should all put bets on the likelihood of a "Son of Harry" series at some point.
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