J. K. Rowling

After waiting two years for this installment, the second to last in the Harry Potter series, it seems a shame that I finished it in about four hours, not including the nap I took around page 204, and the ninety minutes I was out of the house for dinner with my husband.

I think at this point people need to get beyond the “children’s book” label for this series. EVERYONE is reading them, not just children. This book was both more and less dark than it’s immediate predessor (less CapsLock!Harry, but with a major character death, and many many shades of grey) , but it still was heavy on exposition, as seems to be typical with the middle books in ANY series.

I can’t write any more about it without giving away the details. It’s enough to say that the next two years (the minimum duration we must wait for book seven) will crawl by, at least in the Potterverse, and many of us who dabble in fanfic have to restructure our versions of Rowling’s sandbox.