Z/Web

Author: J. K. Rowling

Wow. This book is the best since the first, and a terrific cap for the series. If you thought Rowling was making all this up as she went along, this proves she was not, for everything is revealed in this book. All the little storylines are wrapped up and questions answered. There are flashbacks to previous books and we suddenly see all sorts of hints and clues in those that we never noticed before. Rowling knew exactly what she was doing. It is brilliant. I can’t think of another multi-series of books that are so tightly plotted. As for the story in this one, it’s also brilliant. All the books so far have followed a similar plotline: Harry goes back to school, learns stuff, gets into mischief, and stops some evil Voldemort plot. But this one is different. This is a different Harry. In this one, he and Ron and Hermione skip school and set right out on the mission left them by Dumbledore in the last book, looking for additional devices containing portions of Voldemort’s soul. If even one of these is not destroyed, Voldemort can rebuild himself, so all of them must be destroyed before Voldemort can be battled. This all leads to a dramatic wizard war at Hogwarts (I can’t wait to see the battle on film) and the final controntation between Harry and Voldemort. (Come on, that was obvious — I’m not giving anything away by telling you that.) I won’t leak the ending, but I will say that it is exactly as it should be: appropriate, dramatic, and utterly satisfying. It’s the perfect conclusion to the perfect series. This book is one of the fastest reading, too: it’s just non-stop excitement and you can’t put it down. I didn’t start reading until late Saturday night and finished it Monday night. Highly recommended.