For those of you living under a rock or working on much more important things, the seventh and possibly final book in the Harry Potter series came out on July 22nd. I usually wait a few days or weeks after the release date to read these books, but this time around I was pretty anxious to find out the resolution to several plot lines left hanging in the previous book. I first tried to get the book at midnight at the JHU bookstore. Unfortunately, since I did not pre-reserve the book, I would have had to wait till about 2 a.m. to pick it up, so I decided to simply wait till the next day. The trip was not totally fruitless; almost everyone else there was in costume and having a blast, so I enjoyed my first Harry Potter release party. After a quick trip to Barnes and Noble after lunch on Saturday, I read the book from 3:30 p.m. to about 10:30 p.m.

Spoilers below...

My thoughts on the book — great beginning, great ending, weak middle. From about page 70 to about page 600 was one long camping trip, punctuated by the destruction of Horcruxes at regular intervals. None of the Horcrux chases had anywhere near the level of drama/difficulty of the quest for the Horcrux at the end of Half-Blood Prince. The end, though somewhat predictable and anticlimactic, did tie up most loose ends quite nicely. Some random people died in the book, which I suppose is realistic enough, though lacking a sense of destiny. Certain characters, notably Snape and Dumbledore, were revealed to be not quite as black and white as they had seemed in earlier books. The epilogue was trite and quite unnecessary. All in all, it was a fun read, though given my high expectations, a trifle disappointing.