Post here if you're done with the new Harry Potter book

[WindRavenX]

I need to talk to someone about it!! I'm DYING here!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Book Lover is done...........nt

[WindRavenX]

2. omg thanks peggy!!

:hi:

I'

[Book Lover]

3. You rang?

Wasn't that amazing?!

[WindRavenX]

4. ok

I totally couldn't believe HP boned Ginny.

[jgraz]

5. Finished it on Tuesday

And, God help me, I hated it. Hated hated hated it.

Somebody please talk me down. :(

[WindRavenX]

6. Sadly, I agree. I still enjoyed it simply because it is the end of a series that I grew up on.

The dialogue was in particular most awful... Rowling really can't write at this level.

I cringed reading any of the intimate moments between Harry and Ginny :(

[jgraz]

7. I didn't even get to where I could notice the dialog

I was too horrified at the rest of the story. I've been holding this in for 4 days, so pardon me if this becomes a rant...


Here are my problems with the book, in no particular order:

Ginny: I was so looking forward to a serious girl power moment from her, but we got nothing. Six years of hearing how all-fucking-powerful Ginny is and in the end she's treated as a MacGuffin to add a bit of tension to the final scenes. Sad. Ginny's power should have been key to at least one major victory in the battle.

Hedwig: You killed his BIRD? For God's sake, talk about tormenting your readers. This might have been recoverable if Hedwig had been replaced by...I don't know...Fawkes, maybe? But the Phoenix isn't even mentioned in the book. So Harry's pet gets AK'ed and then BLOWN UP for fuck's sake and for what? Nothing that I could see.

Snape: WTF, Jo? Seriously, WTF?? He lurks around in Voldermort's gang for 17 years, kills Dumbledore to stay in their good graces and then...what? He gets offed by the fucking SNAKE? No confrontation with Harry, no moment where Voldy realizes just how badly he's been hoodwinked...nothing. Snape just dies and then effectively monologues his backstory via the pensieve. This guy was one of the best, most complex characters in the series. He deserved better.

Wormtail: Again, no serious climax or resolution to his story. Just a quick death and we're done with him.

Fred: Don't even get me started

Tonks & Lupin: See above re: Fred

The Dursleys: Another WTF moment. All the years of hints, Petunia being "oddly flushed", the mystery of Dudley's dementor visions and we end with a handshake? Yeah, it was nice and all, but what happened to the "character who discovers magical powers later in life"? Didn't Jo hint that that would be one of the Dursleys?

Lucius: This guy really needed to be beat down by either a) Arthur Weasley, b) Draco or c) Ginny. What actually happened to him in the final battle anyway?

Neville: Any Gryffindor could have killed that snake. Neville needed to be inside kicking Bellatrix's ass. Why the hell was that battle given to Molly of all people?

The setting: Why in hell did Harry, Ron and Hermione have to go camping? For one, the monkey-wrench to the formula makes the entire book read like fan fic. It's also completely unnecessary. Go to Hogwarts, hole up in the Room of Requirement and just walk outside the gates an apparate wherever you need to go. This puts Harry in the thick of the action so we don't have to hear about all the Hogwarts developments third-hand. I, for one, would have liked to have been in on the attempt to steal the sword, Snape's return as headmaster and the student resistance that followed. Harry's absence from the school meant that all of these key elements had to happen off-stage.

and finally

The Room of Requirement: Seriously, Voldemort thought that he was the only one who could enter it? Wouldn't you think the mounds and mounds of OTHER PEOPLE'S SHIT would have given him some clue as to the flaw in his plan?


OK, that's enough for now. I don't mean to be such a downer but wow, that just really stunk.

[WindRavenX]

8. "fan fic"

Yup...that says it best :(

Snape was still badass, but I was left hanging--it was so anticlimatic!!

[LibraLiz1973]

12. Could you please put SPOILER in your response Subject line?

Way to ruin it.

Thanks

[jgraz]

15. Wow, sorry. I thought the thread title would be enough

Really, apologies if you were spoiled. I thought a thread for those who had finished the book would be an obvious spoiler alert.

[datasuspect]

13. you ARE A LITERARY TERRORIST FOR PROVIDING SPOILERS

joking, good on you for doing it.

i'm amazed that people get upset at shit like this. it doesn't fucking matter.

[jgraz]

16. The book's out...spoilers are fair game at this point

Though I agree with LibralLiz that I shoulda put SPOILER in the subject, even if I thought the thread was an obvious spoiler thread.

[datasuspect]

17. it's just formulaic, mass produced popular entertainment

trust me, i seriously doubt there is anything that could be THAT surprising about it.

i just can't understand how people get so wrapped up in it that they have severe emotional responses to someone "ruining" their experience of formulaic entertainment byproducts.

[jgraz]

19. hmmm...that's your loss then

I read the first book two months after it was published in Britain and it was obvious then that this was something special. There may be lots of people make loads of money off Harry Potter, but the books have never been anything other than a labor of love by an exceptionally gifted author. It's just too bad her last book in the series had to be such a stinker. :shrug:

[datasuspect]

20. it's okay, i have top gun to console me

and the last starfighter.

[Mutley]

18. Exactly!

I haven't even started reading the first one, though I plan on it, and I'm not upset that I know the ending. :shrug:

[datasuspect]

21. OMG!

a sane person who doesn't buy the hype!

[Mutley]

22. Don't get me wrong

Formulaic, mass produced entertainment can be great. I just don't get all in a fuss about it. :D

[datasuspect]

23. some of it can

everything is better with a strong dose of perspective.

[Mutley]

25. You are right about that.

It's just that very little entertainment isn't formulaic and mass produced these days. So, even though I know exactly what it is, I can still allow myself to enjoy it.

[FVZA_Colonel]

35. I liked it, but I can agree with a lot of what you said.

Especially as regards Ginny. I certainly was hoping for a greater show of power from her, but as it turned out... that was just a waster. And, as regards her relationship with Harry: I've become a fan of her and Harry together, but nonetheless, the romantic moments between her and Harry just felt so incredibly... forced, as if Rowling were going out of her way to please fan-fiction writers by puting them together, however suddenly it may have happened.

The same could be said for Lupin and Tonks.

Personally, I wasn't really bothered, for instance, by what happened to Fred; I can agree with what you said about Wormtail, though.

[Demeter]

36. It's Just Terrible

JKR was just going through the motions. She really didn't know what she was doing. If she'd taken a few years off, and produced something worth reading, nobody would have blamed her. If she'd never written another word, nobody would have been offended. The worst fanfiction is better than Deathly Hallows.

[HereSince1628]

9. Any of you putting your used copy up on e-Bay?

I could wait until next week to get the book half-priced.

[achtung_circus]

10. Not fair.

Not sure if this is for real or loungie stuff. I didn't read past Harry boning Ginny. But if this is intended to be a real thread there needs to be a spoiler alert. The mailman hasn't arrived yet and I don't wanna know.

[Orangepeel]

24. sorry to butt in, but I clicked on this thread *because* I wanted spoilers

what would a thread for people who have finished the book be for, expect for people to talk about what happened?

[achtung_circus]

28. It's the Lounge,

"Harry bones Ginny" is expected, lack of a spoiler alert is less expected.

[WindRavenX]

30. dude. My thread title says "if you are DONE" with the book.

I'm sorry you read this thread, but I was more than fair in providing a warning.

[poiuytsister]

11. Please spoil for me

I stopped reading the series after book 3 and have no intention of picking it up. So who gets whacked?

[liberalhistorian]

14. Never mind all that, what I wanna know is

WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO HARRY? Does he live or die? And who are the characters who die?

I'm dead serious, no pun intended. I live on a SD Indian reservation, with no chance of getting a copy of the book for at least another week, if not longer, and I CANNOT stand it any longer, I have to know. I've never been the type who had to read things for myself, or who didn't like spoilers; I've never minded knowing things before I read them. Will somone please PM me at least with what happened to Harry?

Personally, I think he dies, for a variety of reasons. I've thought that for awhile. It makes literary and mythological sense, and I'm also thinking like a writer, which I am. That's what I and many other writers would do.

[philosophie_en_rose]

26. *spoilers* highlight to read

Harry eventually marries Ginny and has 3 kids. Ron and Hermione eventually marry and have 2 kids. Lots of side characters die. Unfortunately, not Umbridge.

[romantico]

27. So, is Snape really a bad guy?

Was he working with Voldermort all along? Whats the deal with him offing Dumbledore? How does Snape buy the farm? We want spoilers!

[philosophie_en_rose]

29. *spoilers* highlight to read

Snape grew up with Lilly Potter and Petunia, but Lilly and Severus grew apart at Hogwarts. Snape really loved Lilly, though he hated James and Harry. Dumbledore was going to die anyway, so he forced Snape to agree to kill him. The plan was for Snape to then take control of the elder wand, which can only be controlled by defeating the previous owner. Snape is killed, when Voldemort realizes he needs to defeat Snape to control the wand. It doesn't quite work out that way, but Snape dies anyway.

[SoxFan]

31. BUTTERBEER IS PEOPLE?!?!?

:wow: :wow: :wow:

[sniffa]

32. i've aLways been done with it

same with the other books and the movies.

[regnaD kciN]

33. Well, I couldn't disagree with you more...

I finished it, and I thought it was great! Even the writing and dialog -- which is something, to be honest, I couldn't say about several of the earlier books in the series.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

34. I am completely finished as of about an hour ago.

:hi:

[Pale Blue Dot]

37. Loved it. Loved it loved it loved it.

Loved it loved it loved it.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

38. Loved it, but the Epilogue sucked.

it definitly ruined it for me a bit. was a bit more interested in what happened to the main characters, not their stupid future kids.