The Boy Who Lived

Ariel went on a trip today and tried to convince me this last week that when the book came, I should save it for when he gets back so we could read it together. I found this request to be wholly unreasonable. This morning the postman handed me a package saying, "Here's your Harry Potter," and before the girls had gone to bed, I had finished it. The first 50 pages I read to Ariel before he left, but before I could even do that, I just sat there and giggled. I was terribly excited that on the first day of it's release, I was holding the last book in the series -- shipped directly from JK Rowling's house (if she lives in a warehouse on the M1). I felt that maybe I should save it, read a little bit every day, but let's be serious.

So, I thought it was good. Spoiler: everybody you know dies and the whole ending of the book is about people you've never heard of. It was not the best book of the seven, mostly because it's a fight from day one, so there's less room to laugh and explore the wonders of the wizarding world. But it was good and as an ending, it was complete. One of the great flaws of a long series of books is that by the end, you've invested so much of your time and emotion into the books that the end feels like the death of a friend. This was really tidy, unhurried, and instead felt more like the passing of an ancient grandmother who has lived the full gamut of life without regrets, finally giving up the last of her secrets before giving up the ghost. There was peace at the end. And the smell of mothballs.

I normally buy my books from Amazon.com and wait the week it takes to come from the US, but I wasn't willing to do that here. So I bought from Amazon.co.uk so I could (fittingly) get a UK version. It seems that those of you in the US get a translation of the book. It's actually written in JK Rowling's native language -- English. The other exciting thing was that I had a choice between the Children's version and the Adult version. I expected that the adult version would have more sex in it, but I was disappointed. The difference was only the jacket illustration: the children's version has cartoony people on it, while the adult version has naked people. Just kidding. It has a picture of the Slytherin locket.

So that's done. Livia says she's glad to have her real mommy back now. Lena wants to know how it ends without reading it, but I disappointed her and kept silent. Lena revealed today that she doesn't like to read. I nearly had a seizure. She looks so much like me, but on the inside, she is a stranger.

EvilGM commented:
I too thought that the book was tidy on the ending. Although you might have wanted there to be more, it would only be to see what happened to the survivors rather than any glossed over parts. It was pretty realistic in that the kids were fighting some very potent and real threats, and it ended in a way you should see coming (to a degree). No spoilers for you! People started dropping in the first 50 pages and the pace only quickened if anything.