your life was one long emergency

[ekaterinn]

Okay, coffee, good. I have been getting up way too early all this week, babysitting and attending New Teacher Induction, and generally panicking about school starting. I have read Deathly Hallows, and while I liked it, I was depressed that both Remus and Tonks died and was annoyed with the Epilogue of Enforced Heteronormativity with no real signs of social change.

That said, I did really enjoy how Hermione/Ron was handled (while remaining baffled by Harry/Ginny) and really liked Neville leading the resistance at Hogwarts. Luna remains a favourite, and Umbridge was again, creepy as hell. And I'm pleased as punch that people are writing Teddy Lupin fic!

But overall, I kind of felt meh. I think the problem was that I loved OotP. I loved all the new characters, the sprawling sense of it, the DA, Grimmauld House and the Order and everything, and I was devastated when Sirius died. Neither Book 6 or 7 has inspired that kind of response in me, and so I don't feel as deeply about them, for better or worse.

And, yikes, I just remembered I have to write a story for the Bujold ficathon, so I'd better go and get started on that.

Comments

[eveningblue.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to comment to say how much I love that song! I haven't heard it in ages. I really should get those early albums on cd.

[dejla.livejournal.com]

Well, I was satisfied by the ending and the epilogue. I don't think in what's really a children's book we're going to get diversity in sexual preference, especially in an English kid's book, because although it's still not uncommon to have crushes in boarding school, in most cases I think you're still expected to grow out of them. Hermione never developed girlfriends in school--she was one of the guys and expected to be treated as that. Harry and Ginny--Ginny is the one character who fails for me. She never quite came to life.

It depressed me too that Remus and Tonks died. On the other hand, I think that Remus himself missed his own friends terribly, (possibly not so much Peter), and Tonks, as written, loved him enough that she probably died defending him. I don't think the child was negligible for her, but I think that she felt a stronger pull to Remus and that possibly Remus was a little suicidal.

That said, I would have liked to have the book twice as long and with more than one point of view, but that's not how JKR was writing. She sticks to Harry's POV and does a damn good job of that, and that's difficult.

I still agree she's not a great writer. I do think she's a good, if not great, storyteller, and that she was strong enough in her own beliefs about the story not to let anyone else change her mind.

[fanelia-angel.livejournal.com]

I loved the book, however what had the greatest effect on me was the end of Chapter 31 (I won't spoil the details for other readers). The other deaths were unforunate, but I thought the book was good, though the epiologue a bit cheesy and uninformative, except confirmation that Harry and Ginny (who was a favorite character of mine since book 2) were together. I would've liked to see more of that developed, as the Ron and Hermione relationship was. I suppose those are my only complaints. I am curious whether Harry became an Auror, what the rest of them do for a living, and who this Victorie person was. And why was Teddy Lupin (whou would've been 19 years old) at the train station with the kids and their parents?

Besides all that, I hope you're well. ^^