Just finished the book - it’s great, better (and sadder) than I thought it would be. Can’t wait for the movie!
First off, I’d just like to pat myself on the back for correctly predicting that Horcruxes are sentient and would try to possess Ron or Hermione.
Ignore the bit where I predicted that Snape knew the whole prophecy
My favourite bit was Hermione admitting to obliviating her parents and making them move to Australia.
I’m not sure where I like the pacing of the book. Rowling was definitely going for a frenetic, almost frantic pace, and that definitely ratcheted up the tension. At times, though, it felt like too much to follow.
The Taboo was brilliant. Turning Dumbledore’s insistence on calling Voldemort by his name against the Order was a masterstroke.
I didn’t like the way that the Snape reveal was handled. It was basically just an infodump. Surely there was a better way of doing things.
The reveal of “Dracro was the proper master of the wand” was pretty damn lame if you ask me. She was really reaching there.
The ending? I didn’t like it. It was the one thing I was afraid she might pull – “killing” Harry and then bringing him back to life. Lame, lame, lame. If I wanted to read an ending like that I’d go read some fanfiction.
Overall, I like the book, but I really think that there were several things that could have been improved from when they got to Hogwarts on.
I’ve just finished - and I loved it!
Many of the things widely predicted were correct - such as Snape being a good guy after all and having killed Dumbledore on his request. Of course Harry and Robin & Hermione survive. Other things surprised me - I expected them to actually go back to school.
I loved that Neville came through in the end. I cried when Harry went down to the forest to meet Voldemort.
I found the first half a little slow going, but it really picked up later. I was very worried we’d see the return of the annoying, angry, misunderstood Harry for a while there.
I found the last chapter - 19 years later - both satisfying and oddly dissatisfying. I mean it shows that they all live happily ever after and have lots of children, but doesn’t really talk about what happened to Teddy - who raised him given Harry was his godfather. And what do they all do for jobs? If you’re going to give them that kind of neatly packaged ending and future, it needed more detail.
I think I need to reread and digest a little more 
Hmmph. Lupin and Tonks were my favorite characters. I guess this is why one shouldn’t get too attached to minor characters, but I’m very saddened (and honestly, it felt gratuitous – fewer deaths would have had more emotional impact). I don’t think I’ll be re-reading much.
On the other hand, Molly totally kicked ass and I was pleased with how the Percy story line got resolved.
I loved the way both Molly and Neville got their moment of glory, but I fell in love with the Weasley twins’ characters in book 5 and I was hoping Percy was going to be the Weasley to go (there had to be one, I guess). A little more exposition in the last chapter would have been nice as well.
Not bad at all. I’m going to reread it at a more leisurely pace, and then I think I’ll have to reread everything to see which clues got dropped where.
I’ve got just one question: Harry is fabulously wealthy; couldn’t he have simply repurchased the sword from the goblins?
I am WAY to old to stay up all night reading. Out of many satisfying things in the book, my favorite is that THE wand “decided” Draco had bested Dumbledore.
The first half, I was not so sure whether I liked it or not - I agree with Fretful Porpentine that having fewer people die might have heightened the emotional impact, at one point I was thinking “Man, people keep dropping like flies”. Then again, it’s a war, so I guess one should expect a lot of people to die. But Hedwig’s death really surprised me, I kept re-reading the scene over and over again looking for something I missed.
The second half, it picked up the pace and I enjoyed it quite a lot:
I, too, loved the scene with Molly and would have cheered, if I didn’t have a friend reading in the same room who was at a much slower pace…
And Neville! Standing up to Voldie with a sword!! Well, that did get the ladies swooning over him, my, my…Oh boy, I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for Neville ever since he won the House Cup in the first novel. Actually, that’s when I decided I really liked the Harry Potter series - it was kind of surprising that it was not the hero who won the “big contest” but his little pudgy friend (I must admit I even cried in the movie when they hoisted Neville up on their shoulders).
Hrm, erm, I must admit, as sappy as the epilogue was (children just seemed to appear out of the woodwork), I had to sniffle a bit when Harry had named his kid Albus Severus. Then again, I’m a card-carrying member of “Team Snape '07” and enjoyed the Snape flashbacks, even if they felt a bit “Brought to you by the Exposition Fairy”. Alan Rickman is going to have a field day with this.
Speaking of which, I kept thinking during various scenes that they would translate to the movie screen rather well, very excitingly action-packed, and all that. JK even very thoughtfully provided a nude HP scene for the fangirls there at the end
Whew, 10 hours straight through. My eyes are shot.
Doby took one for the team, died in Harry’s arms. Harry digging the grave was a nice touch. Made it a lot more personal than seeing poor Tonks and Lupin. I was suprised that Colin got it though.
Snape was the awful boy who Petunia heard about the Dementors from that she mentioned at the beginning of book 5. There were other bits, but that is the biggest example I can think of that JKR might really have had huge parts of the story planned out ahead of time like she said. I’m impressed.
Xenophilius Lovegood. — band name!—
Dudders shaking Harry’s hand, who would have thunk it?
Hermione erasing her parents memory was pretty astonishing magic. Her magic purse and protecting their camp every night was another thing that all bothered me a little bit. Damn we all know she is smart, but that’s a lot learned in a short time.
Kids drinking and swearing, Hermione (implied) muttering about Ron to shove his wand up his arse and even saying effing a few times. I liked that a lot. Real teenagers, but tough to pull off what a huge amout of your readers aren’t through puberty yet.
I’ve been in and at a few overblown Weddings and was usually bored or underwhelmed because it didn’t seem proper to kick back and have fun. Bill and Fleur’s sounded like something I’d love to see.
Big capers in the story. Breaking into the Ministry and the bank. How long were they there? I always tought the potion lasted exactaly one hour. The escape on the Dragon will look great in the movie. Probably last 20 minutes on screen and they will cut the entire Wedding or the trip to Lovegood’s, you know importaint plot points just to look good.
At least we were spared the blow by blow by curse by curse of the big fight. Somebody mentioned in another thread that the one at the end of OotP sounded like a paintball game. I liked the big fight with everybody from everywhery joining in. Not just our intreped little gang saving the day. In the end it was going to be a one on one, but I liked how this really showed everybody from all parts of the Wizarding world stood up when the had to.
I’m still digesting the very end. What no little Lovegood mentioned being put on the train? And where the hell did the names Rose and Hugo come from?
Just finished, and lent it to my brother to read.
I thought the middle dragged on–the fight with Ron, and the travel scenes, and all the dark-cold-freezing parts, and getting captured by Death Eaters every two or three pages.
But overall?
The book blew me away. There were so many things I was cheering for, and crying over, and gasping at, I can’t even begin to number them.
Even though I’m still not entirely certain how Harry managed to come back?
I want to know what jobs the Trio have, too. Neville was cut out from the first to be a professor (and probably ends up marrying Luna, IMHO), but what about Harry? Does he actually finish up school and become an Auror?
I bought it last night at 12:20 and finished it this morning at ~9… whew!
Overall – I liked it a lot. It was different than what I expected. Darker, and Rowling broke way out of the school year mold followed in the previous books. I didn’t expect that. Almost all of my predications were dead wrong – that the big 3 would live was the only one I hit.
I loved that it was Molly who killed Bellatrix. Also Neville killing Nagira. I also quite liked Percy’s return to the family fold, although, I really hadn’t expected it. Nicely done, I think. Rowling managed to bring him back in a moving way while still maintaining his Percy-ness. Similarly well done was the bit with the Dursleys. Dudley’s goodbye to Harry was moving, but true to the characters. A mushy parting from Petunia would have been unrealistic, given their history. But for Dudley to come around solo seemed plausible and it wasn’t overplayed.
Fred’s death hit me sharpish – I have always been a big fan of the twins. Lupin and Tonks dying ‘off-camera’ blunted the impact of their deaths a bit, but upon reflection it was a realistic touch. In a battle that large, with so many casualties, most of the deaths would be find-it-out-laters.
I wish that there had been at least one Slytherin student among the good guys in the battle. What-his-name – Blaise – would’ve been the obvious choice. And I wish the epilogue had been a bit more specific about how our guys ended up – what they did for a living afterwards and so on.
I’ll probably think of more later.
My favourite bit was when, amidst the Battle of Hogwarts, Ron expresses concern for the house elves welfare and Hermione drops what she is holding and throws herself at him for a deep kiss. For those unfamiliar with previous books, this has long been a passionate cause for Hermione. Harry mentions that maybe it wasn’t the best time for this but that only seems to egg them on. Finally an “OI!” separates them. I loved it. 
I think I was in tears for most of the last chapter. Especially when Harry used the stone to summon every dead person that loved him, to give him strength while he went to find Voldemort. It’s the Viking in me; I’m a sucker for defiant last stands.
I do wish there had been more epilogue. We never see George after Fred gets killed, his reaction would have been heartbreaking. And who is this Victoire person that Teddy is snogging on the train? Is that supposed to be Bill and Fleur’s kid? And how did Kreacher get to Hogwarts?
Molly kicked some righteous ass when she went all Mother Bear on Bellatrix. Still, I’d hoped Neville would be the one to take her out.
I’m still a little confused about how the wand thing played out. Draco disarmed Dumbledore last year, so the Deathstick Voldemort was using answered to him? But how does it follow that it would then answer to Harry, since the wand he took from Draco wasn’t the Deathstick?
Call me naive, but I think I was more shocked than Harry to find that Dumbledore was, after all, only human, with things in his past he was ashamed of. I’m so used to him being an object of awe, infallible, on a pedestal, and at first I was really hoping Rita Skeeter was going to be exposed as nothing more than a hateful little liar. But it’s better this way. He’s not Gandalf, after all.
I feel sorry for Snape. I wish there had been a little more to his big death scene; he’s been a major character and I think he deserved more than, “Avada Kedavra, here, Potter, have some memory <croak>”.
I’m going to have to re-read it again more slowly. One thing that annoyed me was that I was sure the Ravenclaw Horcrux would be hidden in the Chamber of Secrets; since Voldemort, at the time he hid it, would have believed he was the only wizard alive who could gain entrance to the chamber, what place could be better? Instead he sticks it in the Room of Requirement, and for some reason thinks he’s the only one who knows what that room is, even though people are constantly blundering in and out of it.
Overall, I enjoyed it. Over the last 10 years or so, I’ve grown to love these characters and this world. I’m sad I won’t be seeing any more of them.
Certainly an ending, neh?
Holy crap. Dumbledore was a LOT more ruthless than I’d ever suspected. I was sitting their with my jaw hanging open when he stated so baldly to Snape that he was setting the boy up to die. And I felt rather vindicated and warmed by the fact that Snape got pissed off about it, even though it was hardly because he had any warmth to the boy himself but more because of… well, you know.
I wish there had been a way without the Exposition Fairy to explain Snape’s stuff, but I LOVE the fact that he knew Lily even before school. That scene where he’s trying to explain things to her when they’re both ten? Oh how I remember the feeling of trying to be really awfully cool and everything just falling apart and looking like an utter fool. Getting all of Snape’s story would have been impossible without infodump, though, and I love the fact that TO THE END he never said anything and Voldemort betrayed him – or at least thought he would. It would have been a totally ignoble end if he’d actually been a shitheel completely.
And yes, I, like half the world, called the Snape <3 Lily plot. I wasn’t sure if it would pan out just because I’d actually THOUGHT of it and I’m usually wrong about these things.
Dang, I accidentally just hit submit. I’m editing now. Um. That’s probably because it took until past 1:30 in the morning for me to get the damn book (can you believe… fifteen hundred people AT LEAST at this release party, they knew it was going to be big, and they had ONE. SODDING. PERSON. giving away the books. He was a very convincing Harry Potter, though. ) and got it home by 2, started reading then, did not stop until I finished at 6. Go Speed Reader!
Honestly? I’ve hated The Boy Who Lived – or at least been Snape-ly irritated with him – for years. Sodding little shit gets away with everything. I still loved almost everything, though I could have done without the cellophane-packaged ending.
Haven’t read the rest of this thread yet, but I got to Borders at 12:10 last night, read 3 chapters iin line and finished the book at 0830.
It was a damned good read. I have one question: Who the hell is Rose?
(Neville’s and Luna’s child?)
My daughter has it now, so I can’t go back and reread…
Missed the edit window.
I like almost everything, and was surprised at tons, but I thought that Snape and Harry deserved more face time. In his strange way, Snape loved Harry, IMO–why else tell him continually to discipline his mind etc?
There was a lot of exposition and the whole half life/half death bit was cool, but strange. I think one thing Rowling tried to do was show that Harry wasn’t the only one with power–Ron gets the sword (talk about Arthurian!) and then Neville pulls it out of the hat laster. I find this interesting because quests tend to have one person looking for one final thing/object/resolution and Rowling modified that.
I do wish there wasn’t the 19 years later bit–why 19? Why not just end with Harry and Ginny getting married? (or is that too trite and stale?).
I fell asleep after finishing and now I am running late. But, I just wanted to say that I thought it was pretty great. Well, great as a book can be where characters you’ve grown fond of are dropping like flies around you.
I was very disappointed with her treatment of Snape. Snape heart Lily? That was his entire motivation? It read like a bad fan fic.
I have to run before I am hopelessly late, but I just wanted to get that in, because that really cheesed me off (of course, I had been up for 24 hours by the time I read it and I was a bit cranky - so maybe it won’t seem *as *bad on the second read through).
And why don’t they have a Fred? I kept waiting for one of the little buggers to be named Fred.
Finished it this morning, then crashed for a few hours.
Overall, I liked it. I think I need some more time to digest things as it was a lot to swallow. My thoughts are kind of random and probably incoherent. Sorry.
It was hard for me to digest Fred’s death as I was too busy trying to not miss anything in the chaos of the battle in the castle. Still, the resurgence of Dumbledore’s Army and Neville being the motivator for it really made me happy. I love Neville.
I actually thought Snape’s love for Lily was fairly realistic but since I was in the Snape lurves Lily camp, I didn’t have a problem with it. It didn’t get too sappy or melodramatic. Best friends, after all. I don’t know he was really “in love” as just…he loved her. And really, you can’t help who you love.
Dobby’s death got me but not as bad as Hedwig’s. Poor little owl. I figured Moody would have to die, he was too good at what he did. I certainly would have taken him along with me on the quest.
Very much liked that the Malfoys really weren’t redeemed exactly, but still played a part in Voldemort’s downfall. Malfoy didn’t become Harry’s bestest friend, and still survived the whole thing.
I’m glad Albus Dumbledore was human. I think I love him even more.
As far as the epilogue goes, it almost seemed like a let down after the castle scene. I mean, I understand why she did it, but it felt strange to skip ahead nearly 20 years. I thought Rose was Ron and Hermione’s kid. I did like that Harry named his kid Albus Severus.
Did Snape’s portrait appear on the wall in the Headmaster’s office? I don’t remember reading that he was there, and I think he ought to have been. Or, did the school believe he was not an official headmaster?
Have to say I love the idea of Dumbledore still ordering Snape around via his portrait.
I’m going to definitely re-read it now.