Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Book Review
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the epic conclusion to the Harry Potter series that ranges 7 books and takes the characters of the series through 7 years of their lives. Does this book end the series on a positive note? Or does it fail to live up to expectations? Let’s dive in and figure that out.
As previously stated, the Deathly Hallows is the 7th book in the Harry Potter series written by J.K. Rowling. Originally released in July of 2007. I personally remember getting this book for a birthday present when it came out. The book is 759 pages shared between 36 chapters and an epilogue.
The book starts out in a familiar location at privet drive. Harry’s protection is about to run out so they need to move him to a safe house. To do this many characters choose to fly him out before his birthday using non magical methods like apparating so the Ministry of Magic does not know where he went.
The seriousness of the situation throughout the series starts right away, showing that many characters that we have come to know throughout the series are not necessarily plot armored. Harry gets attacked on the way to the safe house and his owl Hedwig takes a kill spell for him like a person taking a bullet for someone else.
For the most part, Deathly Hallows does not let up on this factor of anyone being mortal in this final chapter. There are slow events throughout but it ramps back up in the end as expected where the climax to the plot has many characters not making it to the end, in fact, J.K Rowling does a really good job of still making the deaths of some characters that are not described in words really meaningful by painting the aftermath of the story.
One thing that Deathly Hallows really plays well with is nostalgia. This book is thick with it. From returning to the wizard bank, the ministry of magic, the burrow, Hogwarts, hogs head in hogsmeade, even the chamber of secrets, the author makes it clear that as a part of the final journey will be revisiting locations that we have seen before. I think this is a good choice as it not only makes this feel like it ties the world together, but the author does not need to do as much work describing the new scenery and can focus more on the characters in the moment.
The stakes in this chapter are very high and lead to Harry, Ron, and Hermione feeling like fully fledged adults dealing with adult issues. They do not need the help of elders around them as they set off on their own to take out the discovered Horcruxes that keep Lord Voldemort alive.
I don’t tend to mention the movies in the book reviews, but if you read the book over seeing the movie first, you will understand that the journey is much more impactful and well described. There are more run-ins with characters that we have come to see before. Since this chapter of the series does not take much time at Hogwarts, getting interactions or visibility of other characters from the school really pay in dividends throughout the story.
The final battle between Harry and Voldemort is well done, but the story leading right to the end that ties things all together does not feel made up last minute. The story feels deliberate, it feels cohesive. It does a really good job at changing perspectives on characters in the entire series. I wont say anymore about it in a way to prevent giving away the ending to the series.
So with that said, was this book a good conclusion to the series? It absolutely is. I would not say that this book is the strongest in the series for sure, but it leads to a satisfying ending to the series and closes enough of the plot to make me feel that most questions have been answered and that there was a cohesive reason for everything.
So that’s all for the Harry Potter book series reviews. I know this review was shorter than the last few reviews, but that is because talking about this book without spoiling the entire series can be pretty difficult.
If you want to find out where this book ranks in the series you can check out our ranking list for the Harry Potter book series here!
What were your thoughts on the last installment to the Harry Potter series? How does it compare to the other books in the series? Comment below and let us know. If there is other Harry Potter related content that you want to see from DickWizardy please comment below or send us an email using the contact form at the top navigation.
