Harry Potter and the End of the Series

I'm reviewing this one first. Hah.


People are going to say that this book is a fitting end to a wonderful series, one that nicely wraps up a delightful and exciting storyline and one that leaves us feeling saddened that they must go, but joyful that we got to know the characters that we now feel incredibly close to.

Other people are going to say that this book is a letdown, one that tries to cram entirely too much final action into too small of a space and one that, in its attempt to achieve a perfectly happy ending, eschews the many lessons that could have been learned in this final volume and instead relies on an at once both complex and annoyingly simple resolution that could have come straight from the Clue movie.

Both of these people are correct.

Harry Potter and the Multi-Million Opening Sales is a book that is torn between giving us a satisfying ending in which all of the wishes we have for our favorite characters come true and giving us a gritty, substantial story in which our favorite characters are put to the tests of real life and have to deal with death and injury and guilt and failure. In some respects, Rowling has done a good bit of both, what with bumping off scores of important characters and then telling us that it was all worth it in the fight against the Dark Lord. She treads the line well, occasionally running off for a bit on one side but always coming right back in time for another Harry, Hermione and Ron ambush. Seriously, they walk into, like, 12 traps. Idiots.

The storyline runs fast and for a good while (somewhere around 800 pages, if I remember correctly) and it will certainly keep your attention, just as well as, if not better than, the other books in the series, but I'm not quite sure where to rank this one just yet. There's the Finality Factor that adds some points, but there's also the I'm Pissed Off That It's Over Factor that detracts a bit. Honestly, I love the book until I start to think that that's it (actually, until I think about the Epilogue again), and then I get angry at Rowling for not being able to string this one along any further. Come on, what about Harry Potter and the Ex-Wife From Hell, or Harry Potter and the Mid-Life Crisis, or Harry Potter and the Half-Rate Nursing Home? At the very least, Rowling's left us a bit of an opening at the end for more books. You won't guess how though. Or maybe you will. Maybe not.

Seriously, if you spend most of your time with this book trying to decipher the ending or trying to figure out if Snape is evil or good, like I did, you're going to be wrong. No matter what you guess you will not figure out the immensely complicated ending that Rowling has come up with. If I have to dislike one thing in this book, that's it. The ending is absurd and you only get a few chapters in which to digest it. I didn't even go back to reread any of it until I was done because you get it so freakin' close to the end. The whole thing makes sense, and so there's no continuity problems, and we do get to see a lot of the actions that make the whole thing work out rather than Rowling just defaulting to exposition, but it's still a bit convoluted and too-good-to-be-true-ish.

In the end, I recommend it, just because the only reason you would consider reading it is if you've already read the other 6 and hey, there's no way you're going to skip the last one and be the only person who doesn't know what happens, right? Right. Harry dies...JUST KIDDING!


Or am I?