![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The End (or the beginning?)
Jul. 23rd, 2007 11:56 amEmerging from my cave at last, having spent the weekend feverishly reading the seventh book aloud with my husband, I will say first of all that I am satisfied. A fitting conclusion to an excellent series. I'm weepy, of course, that there are no more books to wait for and speculate about, and still kind of stunned at all the new information to absorb, but at the bottom of it all I'm satisfied.
Before I go off into a disjointed ramble on my reflections regarding the book, I'll just mention that the midnight bookstore party was a blast. The majority of attendents were kids, but there were still plenty of die-hard adult fans, including a group with fantastic costumes for Umbridge, Trelawny, and Hagrid (complete with a pink umbrella!). They had an arts and crafts thing to make your own wand, a guy performing Muggle magic ;) a costume contest, and of course The Great Snape Debate. I was amused to note that when we went to our respective sides, nearly all the adults ended up on the "friend" side (including a man in a very convincing Snape costume). Honestly I wasn't sure either way; I could see arguments for and against Snape's goodness, but I wanted him to be good, so I went on that side. The adults (including my very enthsiastic husband) had cogent, convincing arguments for Snape's innocence. The kids on the other side mostly argued, "But he's mean to Harry!! He takes points from Gryffindor!" Heh. There's plenty of deeper reasons to suspect his guilt, but for an eight-year-old, a mean teacher is bad and there's just no other way to see it. Anyway, we didn't reserve our copy in time, so we had the purple standby wristbands, but they assured us early on that there was no shortage, that everyone would certainly get a copy. And we did, albeit a little later than most other attendents, whom I watched enviously as they walked away with fat orange books clutched in their hands. At last, at last, we got our copy, and read the first chapter before the drive home. We read two more chapters before going to bed around 2:30 (my husband had work the next morning; otherwise we might not have slept at all). Then I waited restlessly all Saturday morning, my mind full of the first three chapters' contents, until my husband came home and we tore into the book again. We only paused to sleep, eat, and oh, right, pay attention to our children. No, we didn't neglect them....too much. Emma certainly knows the phrase Harry Potter now, though all she knows is it's something that keeps her parents very, very busy. :P We finished last night a little past midnight, and had to restrain ourselves from staying up for another hour or two just discussing it. So much to think about....
( Massive, giganto spoilers ahead )
Before I go off into a disjointed ramble on my reflections regarding the book, I'll just mention that the midnight bookstore party was a blast. The majority of attendents were kids, but there were still plenty of die-hard adult fans, including a group with fantastic costumes for Umbridge, Trelawny, and Hagrid (complete with a pink umbrella!). They had an arts and crafts thing to make your own wand, a guy performing Muggle magic ;) a costume contest, and of course The Great Snape Debate. I was amused to note that when we went to our respective sides, nearly all the adults ended up on the "friend" side (including a man in a very convincing Snape costume). Honestly I wasn't sure either way; I could see arguments for and against Snape's goodness, but I wanted him to be good, so I went on that side. The adults (including my very enthsiastic husband) had cogent, convincing arguments for Snape's innocence. The kids on the other side mostly argued, "But he's mean to Harry!! He takes points from Gryffindor!" Heh. There's plenty of deeper reasons to suspect his guilt, but for an eight-year-old, a mean teacher is bad and there's just no other way to see it. Anyway, we didn't reserve our copy in time, so we had the purple standby wristbands, but they assured us early on that there was no shortage, that everyone would certainly get a copy. And we did, albeit a little later than most other attendents, whom I watched enviously as they walked away with fat orange books clutched in their hands. At last, at last, we got our copy, and read the first chapter before the drive home. We read two more chapters before going to bed around 2:30 (my husband had work the next morning; otherwise we might not have slept at all). Then I waited restlessly all Saturday morning, my mind full of the first three chapters' contents, until my husband came home and we tore into the book again. We only paused to sleep, eat, and oh, right, pay attention to our children. No, we didn't neglect them....too much. Emma certainly knows the phrase Harry Potter now, though all she knows is it's something that keeps her parents very, very busy. :P We finished last night a little past midnight, and had to restrain ourselves from staying up for another hour or two just discussing it. So much to think about....
( Massive, giganto spoilers ahead )
