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Books 1-10
11. Joss Whedon and Brett Mathews: Serenity: Those Left Behind
12. J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
So, finally we have come to the end of the road. I am slightly disappointed; this could and should have been an excellent book (or at least an excellent Harry Potter book), instead of a mostly-decent one.
Yes, the tone is darker, people die left, right and centre, but I often get the impression that it was written really quickly. Also, Rowling's strengths as a writer, such as they are, mainly lie in descriptions, but definitely not in dialogue.
My main problem is with the end. First of all, it is too hurried: Voldemort dies, there are a couple of pages detailing the aftermath at Hogwarts, and then we skip straight to the epilogue that takes place 19 years later (i.e. in 2017), which is the second part of the problem. It is not that I begrudge Harry a happy family life with Ginny and the kids, after all the shit he's been through he certainly deserves a break, but I don't necessarily want to read about it. It would be much more interesting to see what happened to the wizarding world — did the remaining Death Eaters and general Voldemort sympathisers put up a last desperate fight? How long did it take to go back to something resembling normality? Have the wounds started healing yet, or are there still tensions between different camps? What kind of policies does the Ministry have now? What do Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione do for a living? What happened to the Dursleys and to Hermione's parents? Questions that are not even remotely touched upon; instead we are told exactly how many kids they have. Honestly, the epilogue read like bad fanfic, and the book would have been better without it.
Not awful, but still a disappointment.
11. Joss Whedon and Brett Mathews: Serenity: Those Left Behind
12. J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
So, finally we have come to the end of the road. I am slightly disappointed; this could and should have been an excellent book (or at least an excellent Harry Potter book), instead of a mostly-decent one.
Yes, the tone is darker, people die left, right and centre, but I often get the impression that it was written really quickly. Also, Rowling's strengths as a writer, such as they are, mainly lie in descriptions, but definitely not in dialogue.
My main problem is with the end. First of all, it is too hurried: Voldemort dies, there are a couple of pages detailing the aftermath at Hogwarts, and then we skip straight to the epilogue that takes place 19 years later (i.e. in 2017), which is the second part of the problem. It is not that I begrudge Harry a happy family life with Ginny and the kids, after all the shit he's been through he certainly deserves a break, but I don't necessarily want to read about it. It would be much more interesting to see what happened to the wizarding world — did the remaining Death Eaters and general Voldemort sympathisers put up a last desperate fight? How long did it take to go back to something resembling normality? Have the wounds started healing yet, or are there still tensions between different camps? What kind of policies does the Ministry have now? What do Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione do for a living? What happened to the Dursleys and to Hermione's parents? Questions that are not even remotely touched upon; instead we are told exactly how many kids they have. Honestly, the epilogue read like bad fanfic, and the book would have been better without it.
Not awful, but still a disappointment.