"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"

Minor spoilers ahead.

It is said that all good things must come to the end. I guess this is also one of the themes of the last 7th Harry Potter book. This time I decided to follow the masses and pre-order the book for release-day delivery. Now, after 10 hour marathon reading - and a good night's sleep ;) - here is the review. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is probably one of the best Harry Potter books. From beginning to the end it is almost non-stop action and suspense that is captures the reader and do not let them go. Gone are the sidetracks of Quidditch (book 4), lots of memories (book 6), and yearly Hogwarts routines. In fact very little time is spent in Hogwarts. There is nice exposition of the guerilla warfare, where the real deal is survival for months on enemy terrain and not spectacular army-vs.-army battles, even though there is some of the latter too. As in some previous books, there is quite a bit of focus on psychological interactions of characters both with their inner selves and with their friends.

Although much have been said about the expected deaths of major characters and possible plot twists, I found the plot close to what I expected. If you spend some time thinking about the events and predictions in previous books, you might be able to guess almost everything, except for the Deathly Hallows that appear only in book 7. Deaths will occur - as they do in every war - but not of the earth-shattering variety.

Although most of the book shows the sisyphean struggle and desperation of our heroes, some of the victories could be called too simple or easy. Getting into Gringotts seems especially unlikely, since wizard's bank should be protected from such magical break-ins. Some characters such as the new Minister of Magic Scrimgeour and Peter Pettigrew is given way too short shrift. The changes in some others - such as Malfoys - comes a bit too fast. On the other hand, the book already clocks 750 pages, so further exposition or adventures might not be for the best. Most of the loose ends are neatly tied in ways that don't seem artificial.

Epilogue seems to guarantee that this is indeed the last book of this series. I would predict that Rowling will return to Potter/Hogwarts/wizards universe in some way. Most like with a "20 years after" or similar milieus, especially since there are things to follow up. Until then we will have to reread the books, watch the movies, and wait.

9/10 for this book. 8/10 for series - some of the middle books could be tightened without loss of quality.