I, like the arrangement Kallistos and his wife have, am the fastest reader of the two so just barely was able to squeak to the last page before my husband was breathing down my throat for it. For me, this was an oddly quick read. Almost 800 pages but I read the whole thing in three nights (and only a few hours in each). Weird.

I liked it, I liked the ending. The critics are saying the ending was too "disney" and too tied up with a bow, but then other critics are saying she left too many characters and story lines with a vague ending if any at all. Well can't please everyone, and those two complaints contradict themselves anyway so whatever.

For me, I absolutely did not see Harry's required sacrifice at the end coming. I saw everything else for the most part. Snape's heroism and true allegiance, Hermione and Ron, Percy's return to the fold (that rat bastard), even Lupin I kind of figured would have to die.

I didn't see Harry as a horcrux, thought that was pretty ingenious, but my favorite bit aside from Harry's brief sacrifice was the look into the character of Dumbledore. That was so necessary, the book would have been empty without it.

A little annoyed that she killed off both Tonks AND Lupin, both parents dead from Voldemort with a baby orphaned somewhere? AGAIN? come on, truly not necessary. I agree with Prof Crash, definitely overkill.

Them on the run through various forests and such I thought were very clever. Writing back in anything at all to do with Gringotts which aside from a short bit in two older books hasn't seen any attention at all. Nicely done I thought. All in all really enjoyable. I think I will reread the whole series since I've forgotten much of it and enjoy it all over again with hopefully better insight.