Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I picked up my copy at Times at Tampines Mall at about 9am half expecting a long queue forming outside the bookstore, well, I didn't really expect that, but the parents were sort of expecting that, my reasoning was that there are plenty of bookstores scattered around Singapore, so there isn't a need to queue for a book which one can get anywhere. The only bookstores I expected to have queues were probably Borders and Kinokuniya because they are the major bookstores. But then again, I don't understand why people are buying from those bookstores because the other bookstore chains are selling them cheaper.

Anyway, fact is that I held onto my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, so the other people, the other hooha, all don't matter at all.

I held onto my urge at checking up on all the spoilers littered in the world wide web, hoping that that would render my Harry Potter journey to be as pleasant as possible, but I couldn't resist that very convenient arena for me to gain access to spoilers, but luck wasn't on my side and all the spoiler sites I went to were all temporary closed because Rowling threatened legal action against the leaking of spoilers.

So the moment I laid my hands on the book, I started poring through it even though I was in the car and reading in a moving vehicle always gives me a big headache. I read in the car, read in the hospital when visiting my grandfather, read in the restaurant while having dimsum brunch with the extended maternal side of the family, read while with Someone and bored him to tears since even though I was there I was technically not there, I was flown of to the magical world of Harry Potter. I read when we went out, read on a stone slab in Raffles City, read on the bus, fighting off the headache. The only time when I resisted reading was when I was having dinner with Someone's friends. Ya, I might be a brat, but I had the decency to give some face to Someone. I was left with a couple more chapters when I reached home, so the last few chapters were read in the comforts of my bed. Just about another half and hour of reading and see off the last few deaths.

The completion of the book is a bit deary on me. It's like, it's all ended just like that, it's a very surreal feeling, the last time I had this sort of feeling was after I read finish the entire set of Hana Kimi manga. It seemed so surreal that everything ended, but everything has indeed ended despite me not wanting it to end but wanting to know how it ends. And I must say that the ending is somewhat a tad bit disappointing. Maybe it's all the hype, and the magical genius of the earlier books, and the sheer lack of pages of this latest to the collection.

The moment my hands gripped on the book, I knew it was going to be disappointing in that the plot won't pan out well because the book was just too bloody thin to make this magical experience a truly remarkable one. There were just too many unanswered questions about the horcruxes and with the introduction of the Deathly Hallows, there was just way too much to explain, and 600++ pages just isn't enough. Call me a book Nazi, but I need the indulgence especially when Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was so long. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was shorter, but because there isn't a need to wrap everything up so it was okay to leave more answers dangling.

I'm itching to talk about the contents of the story, so ***spoilers alert***
(click select ALL or left click mouse and roll over the empty space to read the spoilers)

I think there are just too many deaths in the book and most of the deaths are deaths that do little to the advancement of the plot. The impact of the deaths were not explored, and for some of the characters, the means of which they died were a bit unclear. Like Lupin and Tonks, they died without a clear explaination of how they died, I was like so blur because I didn't really remember them dying. Also the most major death, Fred, was not explored in deeper context like how that death caused an impact on the Weasley family, or and on George in particular, or even if the Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes actually continued on. To me, everything that happen must happen for a reason, and I don't see a reason in the deaths of Lupin, Tonks, Fred.

The only death that I understand and support is the death of Snape. Yes, Snape is a good person, but he deserves to die because only with his death that the plot can advance. And indeed, my guess that Snape was in love with Lily was correct. haha~ But saying it only now doesn't really carry much weight, but I still like that feeling that at least one of my assumptions was right.

Still, much of the book was too skimmed over, sort of like the film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which I managed to catch it on Monday. If you watched the film after reading the book, you'd understand what I mean. There's too much telling of what happened rather than giving details on why it happened, so it's like this this this happened, and that that that happened, and hence like this like that and therefore the end, quite rushed. The Deathly Hallows was unfortunately also like that and as I mentioned earlier on, little explanation was provided and most of the impact the events had were omitted. And this was especially so in the minor recurring characters. Only Harry Potter, Hermione, Ron and Dumbledore were explained in great detail. Much of Voldemort was explained through the perspective of Harry, while Snape was only explained via his pensieve and that's it.

***spoilers end here***
For more spoilers, there's always the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows wikipedia page.

In all, I'm glad that everything was wrapped up neatly and leaving no possibilities of another Harry Potter book, but still, there's space for fanfics and imagination. wahaha~

Yup, I'll go read the book again and again see if there's any minor detail that I missed out from reading in the first round, and while I'm at it, I'll patiently wait for the next two Harry Potter films to be released. I think Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows would make better films than the Order of the Phoenix because the page to minute ratio is smaller, well, hopefully they would be better, because after the first four films, the Order of the Phoenix was much weaker than the rest.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (book): 7/10
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film): 7/10