Andrew's Quick & Dirty, Spoiler-Free Harry Potter Review

Good but not great.  A longer but still spoiler-free review is located below but hidden for those who have yet to finish and are trying to ignore all reviews.  If you wish to read it, then you know what to do.

First off, the good: For starters, it's definitely an improvement over Half-Blood Prince — but it's not like that would take much.  The bad fanfic feel of the previous novel has been mostly relegated to occasional paragraphs, plus the epilogue (more on that later).

The novel also doesn't drag.  Rowling appears to have benefited from a change away from the standard Potter formula (i.e. time with Dursleys, journey to Hogwarts, high jinks ensue, wrap up by end of term).

Finally, it does definitely do what it set out to do, and provides a definite conclusion to the series.

Now then, the bad:  Rowling's penchant for deus ex machina is out in full force, with characters appearing (or being discovered) unexpectedly to suddenly give advice, explain plot points, or simply to carelessly drop the information needed to allow Potter and company to continue their quest.  Her writing, never her strongest point, suffers from occasional cheesy dialogue, and over-the-top descriptions (Chapters Twelve and Thirteen were the worst for the latter, in my opinion).

In addition, the Deathly Hallows of the title seem, in some ways, to be somewhat extraneous.  The parts of the plot concerning it could easily be trimmed back without sacrificing anything significant other than several pages of text.

What of the much ballyhooed deaths?  Well, there are a fair number of them (over a half-dozen named characters who appeared in previous novels, ranging from incredibly minor to major, die), but the deaths — whether longed for or unwelcome — aren't satisfying.  Most dead characters don't get more than one or two sentences.  To give an example: imagine if Dumbledore's death was given the same treatment as Cedric Diggory's, or if  it was passed over with one character simply mentioning to another that Dumbledore had died.

Finally, the climactic chapters suffer from Rowling's worst writing of the novel.  The dialogue is at its cheesiest and occasionally out-of-character.  There's the feeling that every character who had any sort of role, however insignificant, makes an appearance — whether it makes sense or not — and the plot twists, far-too-pat explanations, and deus ex just get piled on in what seems like a rush to make sure that all of the important loose ends are tied up.

In some ways, it feels like Rowling spent much of the time studying Star Wars for ideas — unfortunately, she seems to have decided that Return of the Jedi was the good choice to model after.

So then, my last bit: if given my druthers, what would I change or eliminate?  Well, I'd either seriously reduce the number of plot points regarding the Hallows or I'd increase the Hallows' importance.  More importantly, though, I'd eliminate the epilogue entirely, and I'd completely rewrite everything from Chapter Thirty-Five onwards.

So there you have it: good but not great.  I simply couldn't help but finish it without feeling somewhat unsatisfied.