I have such mixed feelings about the 7th and last installment of the Harry Potter series. First, I have had the book since early September, but as with the past 2 books, I have found the beginning parts entirely boring. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, book 6, took such a long time for me to get through the first 200 pages. This 7th book, was entirely boring for the first 500 pages. Ugh! In the last week or so, I decided to hunker down, that there had to be some excitement, after all, it is Harry Potter, a series which I have throughly enjoyed.
Once I set down, and suffered through the first 500 pages, I finally found the excitement. Then, I didn't want to put it down, didn't want to go to sleep, even though I knew that I had to go to sleep at night because I was so sick.
I won't give endings away, but it was overall a pretty good book. Okay, so the beginning and middle could have been cut down to, "nothing worked for Harry, Hermionie, and Ron for quite a while, and that was bad." And, "some people died."
I think that too many characters died in the book, and I don't know how good it is to teach kids (cause let's face it, kids still adore Harry even though J.K. Rowling tries to say it is not a kids book,) that they should be willing to die for their friends. I would do a lot for my friends, but fighting "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" might not be something I would ever do. I just think the book could have been equally enjoyable without so many deaths, and we all could have understood the moral of the story. The book was good, but it isn't so bad to say goodbye to Harry. I think any further story would be beating a dead horse. Hats off to J.K. Rowling for knowing when to end too much of a good thing.
I also finished reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, a few weeks ago. I had heard great reivews of the book, and picked it up while shopping in one of my favorite and most missed stores, Borders. I chose it because in the story, the author travels to Italy, India, and Bali. Any book involving traveling is intriguing to me. As soon as I got through the first chapter though, I felt that I could not relate with this character. The main character leaves her husband and then sets off on this journey to learn about pleasure, devotion, and love. I feel like the author wants us to feel with her, but I do not think her choices should necessarily be celebrated. The author comments that Americans are too focused on their jobs, money, etc, and through this, miss a lot of the enjoyment that can be found in life. I agree. But she fails to touch on the fact that some Americans are also far too quick to give up on marriage, that we have come to expect immediate gratification, instead of the pleasures found in waiting and working for your own personal happiness. I did enjoy her descirptions of her experiences in Rome, at an Ashram in India, and her time with a Medicine Man in the village of Ubud in Bali. She also brilliantly writes about other people, and you too almost form a relationship with those she encounters throughout her journey. In the end, it turns into a feel-good, you can be happy book, which is ultimately fine. I would recommend the book to others, it is simply my personal feelings that made the book a little difficult for me.
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