DH thoughts
My thoughts on Deathly Hallows As last time, I'm writing this without looking at anyone else's reactions first.

Well that was a bloodbath, wasn't it? (And dang, Jo, you must've been hella pissed at the Harmonians XD)

Things I liked:

It's pure gold: Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches. Explains everything you need to know about girls. [...] You'd be surprised, it's not all about wandwork, either. Maybe I'm just a dirty old woman, but *sneeeerrrrkkkkk*

Kreacher!!!! And Dobby too! I wasn't sure exactly where Rowling was going with the whole house-elf thing, but I really, really like how she approached them here. The general house-elf situation still hasn't been solved to my satisfaction (as with a few other things as well), but of course that would require a whole nother book about the Ministry being put back together (and hopefully cured of most of their xenophobia)

Neville!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was made of win and awesome and more win and I love him and I badly want a book about everything he was doing over the year.

Snape. It's kind of funny, but even though this book had the two things I really, really didn't want for him (Snape dying, and him doing everything For Lily^TM), I didn't mind either of them too much. For the death, well, I knew in my heart of hearts that he was going to bite it, so being mentally prepared I could deal with it. (Though I did ceremonially chuck the book against the wall, as I promised some years back :P) For the Lily thing, for me, at least, it makes a big difference that he knew her before Hogwarts and that they were actual friends, as opposed to him having a creepy one-sided obsession with her. I know I'm a sap, but I really like that Harry named one of his kids after Snape too.

All the little wizarding traditions put in, though I wish she had included more of them in the other books as well.

Not something I *liked*, exactly, but I wasn't surprised that one of the twins bit it; I figured if any Weasley did, it would be either one of the parents or one of them. I COMPLETELY wasn't expecting Remus and Tonks, though. D:

Things I was meh on:

The whole Dumbledore-Grindlewald drama. I mean, it was fine for what it was, but why was it there? It didn't seem to connect to the rest of the story that well.

Dumbledore in general, actually. I was reading pretty fast, but a lot of Dumbledore's planning seemed to just be an elaborate Xanatos roulette. And for all his talk about how he'd learned how bad going for the greater good was... he seemed perfectly happy to screw around with the lives of Harry and Snape and God knows who else. Were we supposed to notice how hypocritical he was, or what?

Things I disliked:

WHY WAS EVERYONE RANDOMLY THROWING UNFORGIVABLES AROUND???????? OH, BUT I GUESS THEY'RE ONLY EVIL IF THE BAD GUYS ARE USING THEM, HUH? I MEAN, EVEN MCGONAGALL!!!! WTF!!!

The whole Goblin thing was another 'where is she going with this' subplot. Would've gone into the 'meh' category except for the copious use of Imperius and the planned double-cross, neither of which seem to have had any direct consequences.

Did Goyle really have to be so much of an idiotic troll? Sheesh, Joanne, lay off the dialects for once.

So did the Malfoys just get no comeuppance whatsoever, or what? I mean, Draco is my baby, and was underage for a good chunk of the book, but seems like Lucius, at least, should've been marched straight back to Azkaban.

Things I wondered about: (and recall that I'm writing this right after reading through for the first time, so it's quite possible some of these were answered and I just missed it)

I'd like to see a timeline for this book; was Tonks pregnant when she confronted Remus in HBP? If so, it certainly gives that scene a different tone. (Though even if she wasn't, obviously she and Remus were far further along than many people were arguing.

Let me see if I understand: when Voldemort cast Avada Kedavra at Harry in the forest, what he actually killed was the piece of his own soul and not Harry's, correct? And the second time, what exactly was going on? Voldie's got the Elder Wand, and Harry's got some other wand, right? So when the Elder Wand flew up in the air... why did that happen, and what exactly did the AK bounce off of to rebound off of Voldemort? Or am I just completely misunderstanding what was going on?

What did happened to all the Dementors?

And now to go off and catch up on all the discussions and wank I've missed.

ETA: Fifty new messages, and none of them with spoilers in the subject line. Did I really go through all that bother for nothing? DDD: