We asked readers to send in their reviews of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows and here's what Shankar Narayan sent in:
And finally, J K Rowling has unleashed, in her own words, 'everything' as the seven-series Harry Potter episode comes to an end!
To begin with, hats off to Rowling for having enthralled her audience for over 10 years, since the series' first publication on June 26, 1997. There are not many authors who can create such enthusiasm for a book among kids.
Also Read: The Magic of Harry Potter
JKR has really mastered a particular art -- revealing incidents and facts -- which makes the story fascinating and amusing. And in her latest, she continues to show her mastery over the same.
When reading the book, most readers would have expected a history of Severus Snape very soon in the story. But what unravels, however is the shocking story of another wizard. Shocking to that extent that the reader would definitely believe them to be untrue, at first. And as she builds upon the plot, all of the knots untie to the same rope!!
Before the release of the book, JKR had mentioned that she would be killing off two main characters. It will need a a great deal of argument to find out which two she meant, because there are so many deaths, from the beginning of the book till its very end!
As far as the story goes, maybe Rowling had laid down all of her knots during her first four (and may be a little in the fifth, for that's where I felt Rowling to be running out of plot-lines), and she just had to accumulate all of them together, and untie them during the last two books.
And to answer the question of many others who are waiting to know the answer to many questions, I would say most of the issues have been very satisfactorily settled by JKR.
However, I felt a few of them remain unaddressed. For example, what exactly went on between Dumbledore and Petunia? The Deathly Hallows even says there was something Petunia wanted to confide something in Harry when they last met!
Of course, there are trademark JKR instances of humour throughout the story. Fred and George's statement -- 'We look alike!' -- when both of them have transformed themselves into 'you-will-know-who' using the polyjuice potion is just one sample.
The bottom line: Lots of deaths, lots of duels, lots of wizard battles and definitely lots of fun and satisfaction.
WARNING: THE HARRY POTTER DISCUSSION BOARDS BELOW MAY REVEAL PLOT DETAILS FROM THE NEW BOOK. POTTER FANS WHO HAVE NOT YET READ THE BOOK ARE ADVISED NOT TO SCROLL DOWN.