Yeah, I didn't dare click on this thread until I had finished the book, plain and simple. Which took me nearly two weeks after it came out, since my aunt was bringing it from the US (a week after it came out), and I have been hosting her and my uncle every day since then, in Iceland... so stealing away to read a chapter here and there, when ktspktsp wasn't sleeping. But then I couldn't stand it!!! I was about 300 pages from the end last night and had to put on my headlamp and read under the covers (so he could sleep... but it was kind of a throwback to my childhood reading-under-the-covers habit
), which I did until about 4am... FINISHED IT!!!
Okay, that said. I enjoyed the book. But I have four main comments.
1) There were WAY too many "near-death experiences" for Harry and his crew. It was like "Oh, oh oh o hoh!!! he's gonna die! Oh wait, not this time." I started feeling like it was the "never cry wolf" story... I sort of figured he wouldn't die, after a while.
2) There was a LOT of skipping around with the plot, making up for gaps in the story with miraculous "discoveries" to sort of shorten up the storyline... I didn't like that too much. It felt like she was leaving too much out, to get to the end... I would have preferred a longer book, if necessary. Like when Hermione and Ron go down to the Chamber of Secrets, it takes about a paragraph! And when Harry faces dementors and realizes that the locket keeps him from producing a Patronus... that was one sentence, when it could have been written out so much better. I dunno. I like detail!! And not detail about the 3 of them Apparating and Disapparating all over the countryside, for no real reason (no plot progress during all those parts). That could have been shortened, as others have said.
3) How the HELL did Neville get the sword? Maybe I just missed something huge, but last I remember, Griphook had it and it was stuck in Gringotts. Then he pulls it out of the Sorting Hat and ta-da! All is good. Anyone follow that?
4) I KNEW Snape was a good guy!!! I KNEW IT, dammit. I really thought there was SOME reason it was him who killed Dumbledore, but I was losing hope throughout the 7th book (as JK Rowling intended, I suppose) because Snape kept killing/injuring "good" people... but I always believed in him, because I trusted Dumbledore's judgment as well. But with so much shit coming down about Dumbledore, I was getting ready to put the blame on Snape, until the scene where he gets killed... and there it went. I KNEW IT.
Snape is redeemed.