Random Acts of Mind by Dones

Bottom Line: You’ve already read the first six (haven’t you??). You must therefore read this book without hesitation. Go on, I’ll wait…

**Note: If you want to remain totally spoiler-free before you read the book, please note this review does contain what I would call mild spoilers. It’s also safe to assume any comments may contain spoilers**

I couldn’t begin to tell you how much all Harry Potter fans have anticipated this book’s release. My own HP journey started about 3 years ago when I watched the first 2 films on DVD and then saw Prisoner of Azkaban in theaters. I then knew I had to read the books, and have since become a pretty big fan, devouring fan buzz from Mugglenet.com and its accompanying podcast, Mugglecast - both of which I highly recommend. Jo Rowling’s website is one of my favorite examples of how breaking the rules in web design can produce remarkably good results, and I’ve been through ‘the door’ there numerous times to get breaking news from the author. Basically, I’m a big nerd: I preordered the book, went to Borders at 9am the day before the midnight release, and was somewhere near #200 in line for a wristband. I was in the second group to be allowed into the line to actually buy the book at midnight, and we had our book at 12:45am. I officially started reading it that night, but got some much needed shut-eye as I have been sick on and off the past couple weeks. I finished reading it later that weekend, and the tears and cheers came out of me as much as they did when reading Lord of the Rings or watching my beloved Jayhawks play for the championship. In short, I loved this book, because it was a better ending to the series than I could have possibly hoped for.

Oh, you want to see how I rate the book? Here goes:

Production value: 5/5 stars. Okay, this is a strange way to rate a book, but I’m going to be unapologetic in copying my film ratings for the purpose of a book review. Half-Blood Prince, for example, would have gotten a 3, as it seemed rushed and had several typos. For a first edition, Deathly Hallows was mistake-free, and it was very obvious to me that Jo put every bit of her writing effort into making this a very high-quality work of fiction. I must warn that this is no kids book based on the warfare subject matter, but the very literary quality of the writing also sets it apart from most young adult fiction books I’ve read. It is safe to assume that each installment was written for the age Harry Potter is in each book. So Book 1 is for 11-year-olds, while Book 7 is going to be about right for 17-year-olds. Educators and librarians might disagree with me, but this was a very dense read, and had a wide vocabulary range to challenge readers. And let’s face it, 17-year-olds don’t read like they used to.

Story: 4.5/5 stars. What caused a hiccup in the story for me, keeping it from being a 5? Too much time camping. Why was there practically no action all year? Also, the fact that we heard only very few snippets from the outside world during this time was excruciating, and while it fit the premise of being in hiding, it was a bit tedious to get through at times. The rest of the book more than makes up for this, though.

Enjoyability: 5/5 stars: The best part by far is the ending, of which I heartily approve. My wife and I were cheering and crying as we read the last 100 pages together out loud. The fact that so many questions are finally answered brings this book to the forefront of my mind as a perfect ending to a classic series. The Return of the King hardly wrapped things up better than The Deathly Hallows. While I would have liked to have seen a longer epilogue, I am more than happy with what we do find out about the characters’ futures.

Dones’ Rating: Simply a great book. Tell your kids they can read it when they grow up.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 4:55 am and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.