Damn You, Harry Potter

As if working until 2AM each night this week wasn’t bad enough, I had to start The Deathly Hallows on the plane ride home from Orlando last weekend. Which means I was up until 4AM last night, unable to put the book down.

Overall impressions, from page 350 or so: It’s good. Not having read any of the other books in the series besides the first (but having seen almost all the movies in the theater), I can follow most of the story arcs sucessfully. I’m enjoying the character development and the plot is beginning to pick up steam, although it dragged on a bit through the first third of the book.

Usually I’ll power through a book I like in one sitting (even books this big), but I made a conscious decision to slow down and savor this one as much as possible—it’s been a while since I had some good escapist fiction to read, and it’s a welcome alternative to sitting in front of an LCD for 3/4 of the day.

If you don’t re-read Sorcerer’s Stone and then read all the others in order ASAP, you are hollow and dead inside.

It’s definitely on my list. I don’t have any of the books besides the first, so I’ll have to make repeated trips to the library, I suppose. For a while I was resigned to the fact that I’d never have enough time to read them all, but I’ve thrown that resolution out the window.

None of them are difficult by any stretch, but they increase in length and density as Harry matures. So the first one was most like a children’s book, they get a little more mature with each volume, and Deathly Hallows is closest to grown-up fiction.

Even with your schedule, I suspect you could get through all seven in a couple of weeks.

Call me, Mr. Idiotking. The whole set is on a table in our living room. You’re welcome to the early editions. Katie is in Order of the Phoenix and is working hard to complete them all before school begins.