Book Club

At a recent family gathering we discussed doing a book club. We know that all of us are spread out across the west and cannot meet in one location to talk books. I have put a yahoo group together to be able to have a one stop source for books we are reading, chat times and places, and any other info we want to share. I sent out an invite to those I thought would be interested. If you did not receive one I apologize for not thinking to send it out to you but if you are interested in joining there is a sign up link to the right of the page. We aren't the biggest brains in the world (at least I am not) so don't expect the books to be ultra-literary in nature. Expect more fiction that is entertaining. However, we will sneak in the occasional brainy book or spiritual book to make sure we are human still.

HP Book Review

So after starting 'Order of the Phoenix' in the beginning of July and then reading 'Half Blood Prince' I finally started 'Deathly Hallows'. So the first thing I have to say is I never really paid attention to the title and listened to people say Deathly HOllows...like a forest. Then as I read and realized it was HAllows that made a huge difference. For a while I expected something to happen in one of the many forest locations but how foolish a thought that was. Anyway, I finished last night so I figured I would write my thoughts down about this book and the series.

I loved the fact that all of the characters came into play during the book. I thought that we would miss great characters like Neville, Luna, and my favorites Fred and George. I was kept on the roller coaster of events not really knowing what was going to happen next. Although, I have to admit I didn't really try to figure things out and went with the flow of the book. I don't know if it was because I mostly read when I was tired at night but, it seemed the emotion flowed more in this book and there are some other obvious reasons: characters we have grown to like disappearing or dieing does bring that about.

So I haven't done a great job in my review but, skipping to the end I had one of my suspicions confirmed and that was that Snape was really on Dumbledore's side. In 'Half Blood Prince' when he kills Dumbledore I thought that was the plan and I was justified in that thinking. With all the doubt that is cast on Dumbledore I learned that if he trusted someone or a theory to go with it. I was all ready for Harry to actually die and had kind of a wierd dissapointment when he didn't. But, JK did a good job of explaining it and it made for that cool showdown with Voldemort (no I am not afraid :-)). Other than the "19 Years later" being really cheesy but kind of necessary, I really liked this book. Of them all I had previously like 'Half Blood Prince' best and 'DH' outdid 'HBP' just enough; although since the kids are older the language of "men" comes into play more which I didn't care for.

Overall the book is a 5star book. A great series with only 1 book that was difficult - 'Order of the Phoenix'. If you haven't read the series and enjoy a good, good versus evil book with great characters I reccomend you get started. They are easy reads and don't tax the brain too much or at all. Will there be another Harry Potter phenomenon type of series again? Who knows.