Feeling: literary
Listening to: Incubus - Make Yourself
Reading/Watching: Neil Gaiman, because Harry had to end sometime.

This entry is about reading (and reviewing) the seventh book of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.

If you have not read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yet and intend to do so sometime in the near future, OMFG stop reading now or you will deeply regret it.

Picked up HP7 at 12:30 on Friday night/Saturday morning, ate at IHOP, read until 3 a.m., fell fast asleep.

Woke up at 8:30, moved into living room to let grumpy Mr. Katie sleep, read until 1 p.m. when the hunger pangs were getting annoying.

Resumed reading at 1:45.

Fell asleep on couch for undocumented length of time.

Left for call-time at the playhouse at 5:00, with my bookmark at page 502. All the chipper little high school girls in my dressing room (they talk about Hannah Montana; yes, kill me now) had copies of Deathly Hallows under their arms, flipping anxiously around the hundred-page-mark and shrieking "No, don't tell me!" when someone would mention something further in the book.

Everyone thought I was crazy for already being at page 500. But I'm sure most of my darling blog-folk finished it long before me. I tell you, I would have finished all in a Saturday if it weren't for that annoying nap that I didn't mean to take. Grr.

Finished the book the following morning (Sunday), and am quite satisfied.

Now, for the omfgSPOILERS Official MegMarch Review:

Killing Hedwig was just mean. Seriously, very mean. Although I felt the appropriate jolt for Mad-Eye Moody because he was my favorite DADA teacher.

Also, Lupin? Please stop whining. You're resembling Harry. A seventeen-year-old should not be able to put a grown man in his place.

The fight between Harry and Ron was so far foreshadowed that I almost skipped reading it, but at least Rowling didn't come back with some secret power or magical key to the prophecy so that Ron could have a specialness all his own, because I might have vomited. Ron is great because he is normal. He is average. And me, I love to have average characters to keep things realistic. Although the scenes when he returned were very worth it. I got all fangirly and vocal in my living room. Scared the puppy.

I love (LOVE) that someone finally pointed out Dumbledore's method of "I'm so special, no one else could possibly understand my methods, so I'll keep everything to myself." The turnabouts on his character were fascinating (not that I doubted his good intentions for a second, but I liked having them thrown into question), and I feel he was decently vindicated and humanized, more than most role-models are in kidfic.

Did anyone else... not really feel anything when Fred Weasley died? Maybe it's just me. He and George became so interchangeable, and Rowling hardly touched on the trauma of George losing a twin (perhaps I'm too used to the Big Deal of the bond between mon coeur and his twin). Plus, I expected the bodycount to be higher, since the people we know and love tend to be in the front line all the time.

I agree with many others on this one: Neville's Gran rocks. I want her for my gran. I also want Molly Weasley for my mum. I pray to God they have the actress scream "bitch" during the seventh movie, because I had difficulty imagining the proper inflection on my own.

Penultimately, it is needlessly cruel to kill Lupin and Tonks. Kill one or the other, but offing both raises all kinds of questions about what happens with little baby Teddy Lupin. Now Teddy needs his own series, kthanks. Note: send memo to Ms. Rowling.

And Harry, please stop monologuing already. We get it. (I am unforgiving of the fact that this book series was written--and is still categorized--for the 8-11 year-old crowd. This book was clearly written for ME; how dare it patronize?)

Meanwhile, Mr. Katie was quite miffed that I ignored him for a full 24 hours in favor of a large chunk of bound and printed pages, and rather than mention his months of WoW addiction (and accompanying Wife Neglect), I spent the last few days lavishing attention on him.

Now, the plan is to finish American Gods and re-read the entire Harry series from beginning to end, slowly so that I may absorb all the small details that inevitably were forgotten in the intervening years between books.

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