
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Well, here you are. At the very last final conclusion. ...Or are we? There's an inherent flaw with a series, especially when it becomes a full-fledged franchise. And that's the inability for people, even the creator(s), to just fucking let it go. There always seems to be one more series to beat out of the corpse or a sequel that is crapped out twenty years too late. And Harry Potter, the little tosser, isn't any different. While the Grindelwald stuff has its place in the story, JK races right past the need for it and starts pitching their next idea. And, let me tell you, rolling your eyes makes it really difficult to read a book.
I hate to start off a book review like that, as it undermines it, but the inclusion of a backdoor pilot does the same for the book as well. There is a need to be reflective about Dumbledore and to acknowledge that he lived an entire life (if not several) before Potter was even born, but I have this feeling it takes up too much space in the story. It is fair to say that I might not have even noticed it if I read this book before the next movie series emerged from the capitalist boardroom, but I think it's equally fair to say that JK only allows the subplot to take as much of a hold because of their future franchising.
It's also a problem I have with the latter three books in the series. As the pacing seems to suffer from the inclusion of various unneeded things. There is something to be said about a book series that was able to grow up with its audience, but the latter novels just don't hold up on their own. I could see myself re-reading Prisoner of Azkaban on its own, but never Order of the Phoenix. That's the biggest issue with a book series such as this, they need to live together or die alone.
I suppose I need to talk about Deathly Hallows as a book on its own. It's fine. I would even say it's good for the most part. It just needs to be trimmed down a couple hundred pages. When it shines, it really fucking shines. The rest of the time, I'm kind of waiting for the next good bit. If the book needs downtime to establish something, that's great, but here I feel we have an author who has the authority to do whatever they want. So, bottom line, it's mostly good with a side of bad pacing.
One thing that stuck out to me was the actual Battle of Hogwarts. JK taking a very much JRR Tolkien approach to battle writing. As in we don't actually see much of the battle as we have to follow around some noncombatant asshole. It's more of an observation than a criticism, but I will say this is why third-person omniscient is the best literary perspective. That's a hill I will die on.
There we have it I suppose. A book series I finally got around to reading and didn't feel I wasted my time. Which is probably the highest praise I can muster unless your last name is Heinlein. A book, and series as a whole, that was clever, charming, and well-written, but got more and more up its own butt. The last never becoming a fatal flaw, but probably would have if they wrote two or three more books/movies.
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