I just finished reading HP5 today, and I have to say that I was a bit disappointed. I have to admit that I’ve never been a big Harry Potter fan, as I couldn’t even finish book 1. Someone told me they got more intense in the later books, so I started reading again at book 3. I really enjoyed books 3 and 4, as long as I looked at them in the context of kids books. I guess I’m too serious or something, because I have a very hard time enjoying kids oriented entertainment, unlike most of my friends and family.
I thought the ‘somebody dies’ phenomenon was a big let down. Everybody knew that was part of this book, and it seems to me that JK Rowling did it on purpose. In retrospect, it was actually a brilliant marketing idea. I believe she sold a lot more books than she would have, because of that bit of information she ‘leaked’.
But the thing I didn’t like was that she seemed to gear her writing towards this ‘somebody dies’ idea. First it looked like person A was going to die, then person B. In the end it all seemed like reading a murder mystery in reverse. I felt used.
But I also have to realize that the Brittish love a good murder mystery, and yes even the kind where you are trying to find out who’s going to be killed. So it probably fit in just perfectly with their culture. But it really ruffled my feathers, to the point that I might not read the last two books.
