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Spoiler:
i agree fta: i didn't see dumbledore's actions in a way that made him less at all. in the first books, i think we're given to see him as a child would - and you don't always explain your actions to a child. as the series goes on, we see more and more behind the curtains as to the real machinations behind the events in the book. in this one, i think we're given the final pieces to the puzzle.
after the splitting of voldemort's soul that occurred when harry was given the scar, there really wasn't any choice but for harry to die. that, or let voldemort live and continue to kill people. how could dumbledore have prepared harry for that when he was 15? particularly if dumbldore couldn't know who to completely trust. i liked the fact that he 'used' harry in the way he did. as far as his childhood relationship with grindlewald, i don't see that sullying him at all. he was a kid. i read the passage about his sister, in the confession to harry at the end, to indicate that he wasn't the one who killed her directly - but perhaps he felt his preoccupation with the hallows had blinded him to the nature of his friend.
i enjoyed the change in rowling's writing style in this book. i felt like i could sense her competing desires to justice to the story, and to be done with it. for a while, i thought she might end up just killing them all off, which would have been kind of interesting. adding in the cursing - i thought it was all a bit funny. i didn't really feel that the book dragged through the middle...then again, i read it in a straight marathon session. of course i thought the end was a little cheesy, but there you go. it's still a children's book.
and when the snape bit came up, i was happy for shani and snowy. i've always thought snape had kind of a pathetic character...all mopey and like a little goth bitch - but i'm glad that he was shown to have pulled out the iron balls when it counted.
you never know what will happen in the next several years, but i have to say i'd be a little bit surprised if another book came out that wasn't primarily involved with the children, or that wasn't a prequel dealing with james, lily, sirius and the rise of voldemort and so forth. sure, there's going to be stuff that happened in the 19 years between the book and the epilogue, but after defeating voldemort and scattering the death eaters, it would be pretty anticlimatic. sort of like tacking on a silmarillion book...after frodo leaves middle earth. the story of samwise and how aragorn ruled in gondor. maybe not a bad story, but i think it would pale next to the events we've already been given.
i was kind of expecting a plot twist that more directly dealt with the three hallows - some of sort of necessary combining of the three of them to defeat voldemort in a more direct fashion. they all factored into the final battle, but it wasn't really quite what i was expecting.
regardless, it was worth the read in my opinion.
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