Caution!  Spoilers ahead!

Last weekend marked the debut of the seventh Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  We were too tired after having dinner with friends (hi Kim and Patrick!) on Friday night, so we didn’t pick up the book that night.  Instead, we got up in the morning on Saturday and picked up two books at around 9:30 am.  What followed over the next two days was a veritable orgy of reading.  Honestly, I had forgotten how good it felt to just sit down with a good book and just read, read, read. I think I read about 7 hours on Saturday and another 5 hours on Sunday until I finished.  Carisa reads about 25% faster than I do, so it took her significantly less time.

Bottom line?  Very good book.  Not great, perhaps, but still very good and very enjoyable.  I wasn’t a big fan of the epilogue - too short, too few details, too nice and clean.  I wasn’t very keen on the large sections of the book spent hiding in a tent, either.  But that didn’t stop me from feeling very happy and satisfied at the end.  I could go on and on about how I liked this thing and didn’t like that other thing, but I’ll save the in-depth analysis for another time.  Just one thing, though: I held out hope for Snape to come through, and boy did he ever!  I feel so much pity for the guy, but he was without a doubt the most hard-core, steadfast wizard ever to pass through the halls of Hogwarts.  I doff my wizarding hat to you, Severus Snape.