I finished reading Harry Potter by about 3:20 am Monday. I can't remember being this into a fantasy novel since I was 13, barely pubescent, and absolutely in love with the idea of Perrin Aybarra in the Wheel of Time. I'd say that I thought about Potter more over the past weekend than I slept.
Often times when authors take three years to write the next book in their series it is because they have no idea what to say. The new book is nothing like that. Honestly, I think Rowling took as long as she did just to make the hype/anticipation of its arrival that much more acute. I think this is the best one yet. Really.
Posted by matt at June 23, 2003 11:52 PM | TrackBackMatty...
That's exactly how I felt about the last one, I just managed to snag the new one, but we wont say how. I loved the last one, I felt like the story was finally just really gettin' going into a moxy fantasy novel, especially with Potter gettin' all teenager-ish and pissed off, and it felt like she was drawing some really cool elements from the whole comic-book coming of age thingie. Anyways, I'm glad you loved it and I look forward to reading it...
Posted by: JosiahQ at June 24, 2003 9:59 AMI read a review of the new Potter book in the bham paper and it talked a lot about the darkness of this particular book. What do you think?
Posted by: Meredith at June 24, 2003 1:14 PMWell it's dark in the sense that it really functions in the shadow of the end of the last book (Cedric's Death). Also it introduces evil that is not part of Voldemort. A lot of the book revolves around beaurocratic evil. There is a review at Salon that pretty much sums up what I think about it.
Posted by: matt at June 25, 2003 12:02 AMI love the darker Rowling. I mean, it seems like she's making a great, great transition from kids story through adolescence into a much darker fuller fantasy world.
Posted by: JosiahQ at June 25, 2003 5:14 PM