Deathly Hallows - WITH SPOILERS! Options

[Mata]

So, what did you think?

I saw most of it coming, but I thought that she handled it far better than I had expected her to. The stuff with Snape was handled especially well, and the last few chapters were very strong. The middle of the book seemed to drag quite a lot, but I guess that was necessary to allow the end to build more convincingly and with a greater sense of pace.

I heard that she had ghost-writers help her get it right, but that might just be jealous industry gossip, but for the first time there was a sentence in there that I thought was superbly crafted. It seems odd that one would appear after seven books...

What did you think?

[PsychWardMike]

Overall, I enjoyed the book quite thoroughly. My only issue with the writing itself was the entirety of chapter 3. I thought that the scene where Harry left the Durselys could have been much more than it was. After that, however, I thought the book was a fine read and that she wrapped everything up pretty succinctly. There were a few times that I was surprised at her almost Tolkein-like knowledge of her own universe.

But do you know what I would have liked to have seen? A chapter or two devoted to Hogwarts and the goings on there. I like Neville and Cho and Hagrid and McGonnagall and Flitwick and Peeves and Nearly Headless Nick and Luna and Ginny. To have a "Neville's Tale" chapter or something of the like would not have been too hard. Rowling did it for Kreacher, Dumbledore, and Snape, but all the Hogwarts resistance got was "Oh, by the way... they beat the shit out of me."

As for the epilogue... I didn't dislike it so much as I was disappointed. Did Harry join the Ministry? Did he become an Auror? It's all well and good that he had kids, but what did he do? It seemed if she was going to write it, she might as well have gone for the gusto and given us about forty or fifty pages. Maybe even flashed forward to the death of Harry to ensure that no one could use the Elder Wand or whatnot.