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A review by the_gandy_man
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
3.5
Pretty good book. A lot of the reveals and the way everything comes together is pretty good. Harry is a horcrux and Snape was on Dumbledore's team the whole time are really good. Ron and Hermione get neglected after the penseive part, which feels really weird. The reasoning for why Harry didn't die in the end, and why the Elder Wand is really his are unsatisfying and bad. And of course at the end of her huge epic bestselling fantasy series, at the final climax in the struggle between good and evil, Harry and Voldemort have an unnecessarily drawn out conversation like in Prisoners of Azkaban. Lupin and Tonks die off-page. The culmination of the SPEW plotline is Ron saying "we need to warn the house elves so they can escape" and then Hermione kisses him and then they do not warn the house elves. These are just a few of the many bad parts of this book. But the book is still pretty good. It's a sufficiently epic conclusion to the series. It has a lot of good character stuff.
The series as a whole is kinda crazy. It's pretty good. It has a very engaging world, and some great characters. At the same time it's infuriating. The worldbuilding is frequently nonsense. The plot is frequently nonsense. The dialogue is frequently terrible. The books introduce several interesting societal issues, like the fucked up slavery of house elves, or how wizards don't let goblins have wands, or how they kick centaurs off their land, but it feels like the book says nothing more about them then "man that's messed up, but we can just ignore it because it doesn't affect us." In the case of house elves, Hermione advocating for their freedom is played as a joke. The constant lack of competence displayed by Rowling is incredible considering the books are actually good. I haven't finished my rewatch yet, but I can confidently say the movies are much better. They improve on so much. There are countless scenes that are mediocre in the book and iconic in the film, and a lot of unnecessary bloat the films removed.
The series as a whole is kinda crazy. It's pretty good. It has a very engaging world, and some great characters. At the same time it's infuriating. The worldbuilding is frequently nonsense. The plot is frequently nonsense. The dialogue is frequently terrible. The books introduce several interesting societal issues, like the fucked up slavery of house elves, or how wizards don't let goblins have wands, or how they kick centaurs off their land, but it feels like the book says nothing more about them then "man that's messed up, but we can just ignore it because it doesn't affect us." In the case of house elves, Hermione advocating for their freedom is played as a joke. The constant lack of competence displayed by Rowling is incredible considering the books are actually good. I haven't finished my rewatch yet, but I can confidently say the movies are much better. They improve on so much. There are countless scenes that are mediocre in the book and iconic in the film, and a lot of unnecessary bloat the films removed.