I finished it
"I think I may vomit," lol.
Seriously, good book. Not "great" book, though. Most of the way through it, I thought it'd be my 2nd favorite, after Order of the Phoenix. But after the ending, maybe its 3rd.
The weird/gratifying/disappointing thing is, I pretty much figured out where J.K. was going with this one, after reading Book 6. I didn't expect to see my thoughts reflected on the page though. Glad she still surprised me, but the sap was over the top. Hence the "I think I may vomit" quote from the Harry-Snape Occlumency scene from the OotP movie.
The critic in me says that the series as a whole was excellently crafted. It shows in this one, as there were so many threads that Rowling pulled. But at the same time, she made the bow too neat for my liking. Too tidy.
However, lately I've been reading alot more 'adult' fantasy - The Chronicles of Amber and The Dark Tower being the two most-influential fantasy series on my mind right now. So yeah... I expected a non-happy ending. Either Rowlling caved to the outcry of the fans, or planned it this way all along -- both thoughts are kinda disturbing to me, from an author's standpoint.
This is an Amazon review, and I feel it sums up my thoughts perfectly:
Harry's final story could have been about 200 pages less. We follow Harry, Ron and Hermione across the countryside for about half the book, just waiting for plot points to fall into their path, with little knowledge of other characters. The way that Voldemort's crew takes over Hogwarts and the Ministry is nonsensically conceived. Snape's final revelation of being good or bad is explained in one long, convenient memory instead of letting it unfold within the natural progress of the story. All the big deaths are rather anticlimactic. The ending relies too much on lecture-like explanation. And finally, the "Deathly Hollows" themselves play a very unimportant and unlasting role in the series. And the epilogue was just lame. But it's still Harry Potter, I love all of them, but I admit to being kind of bummed that Jo didn't seem to take her time on getting this last one right.
When I first started the book, I felt a little teary-eyed. I know I've waxed poetic about it already, but damn it... this is the last one. And I hope that other authors don't make 'sequels' to this series later on, as they've done with Austen's Pride and Prejudice. 7 is the magic number for a reason.