The End

It’s always strange to me when a series is finished. Complete. There’s something just so final about the words “The End” that I don’t know what to do when I read them. I definitely feel a sense of closure but also a tugging sense of loss. Is there a hole? No, but I don’t know where to go from hear. I don’t want to reread it so soon. After each Harry Potter book I needed some time to let it all soak in, and with Deathly Hallows I read the book straight through the night and then fell asleep. This is more or less the same, but while I still have the book fresh in my mind, I’d like to point out a few things.

Let’s back up a bit. I got my book at 12:15 ish this morning. I got home shortly after 12:20. By some miracle we only hit one red light on the way home, so a drive that normally takes 15 minutes only took 5. I got all settled up with my caffeine and snacks and whatnot and changed into something comfortable, then read and read and read. I finished shortly before 9 a.m. this morning. At this point i have been awake for more than twenty four hours so beg pardon if there are some errors and such in this, and some of my thoughts aren’t strung together very well.

The first thing was that the book started out ordinarily. It was like I was walking into a cave with a flashlight and maybe an eighth of the way in my light starts to flicker. And it gets dimmer, and dimmer, and dimmer, until I’m about halfway into the cave. Then the light goes out very abruptly and I can’t see anything, can’t feel anything, and there’s nothing except the oppressive black trying to engulf me. So I find some batteries to give the flashlight a second chance and it’s all going well for a little while and then the light starts to malfunction. Things seem clearer at times than others but no real end is in sight. And then the light breaks. I trudge on, and very abruptly emerge into the sunshine.

It’s a long simile, I know, but bear with me. It will make more sense if you’ve read the book.

There were two plot elements that I just did not see coming. There was one structural element that surprised me but made a bit of sense. And there was on moment in the entire book when I cried.

My opinion? This book stands apart very glaringly so from the others. The Harry Potter books have a sort of dark progression. Books one, two, and three are all about Harry and his friends as they try to work around the boundaries of the school. Books five, six, and seven were the plunge where Harry and co. couldn’t turn back anymore. The tipping point. And book four bridge the two sets. Except these books were a steady progression into an ending that was so huge and epic.

Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse are all a sort of package deal. They seem to fall together neatly because of the whole Nomad hunters issue. But that’s resolved in Eclipse, and there’s really only one thing left to resolve in Breaking Dawn. I expected BD to be more like Twilight or Eclipse. There are problems, yes, but a solution is found and the problem is dealt with. It didn’t quite go that smoothly. All I can say is that the difference between the first three and this lats book is like the different between Prisoner of Azkaban and Deathly Hallows.

I don’t know yet if I love it or hate it, but I don’t think it’s my favorite out of the series. I do know that there when I re-read it, there is one big part that I’m going to skip because it was incredibly painful to read the first time.

For now, I leave you to your thoughts.

Just a small reminder, please do not discuss the contents of Breaking Dawn in the comments. You can check out our thread here but please remember to use spoiler tags when posting in that thread.

size=”1″>By the way, if you’d like to contact me you can do so by sending me an e-mail at [email protected]