One Slate author's comment on the book:

Nyuk:

...a long and only slightly ridiculous chapter set (maybe?) in the afterlife—which looks exactly like King's Cross railway station, except that the only bearded transient Harry meets is Dumbledore, and unlike the bums in King's Cross Dumbledore only exposes himself to Harry emotionally.

I liked the epilogue. I thought people liked endings that were ambiguous and anything could happen. All we know is that on that day, these families made an effort to be happy so their kids would get on the train in peaceful circumstances. We don't know what will happen at home when most of the kids are gone. Ron may secretly be a bastard to Hermione, he may be famous for hunting down every former Death Eater and making sure they're executed--except the ones who are useful. We don't know what Malfoy is acknowledging--a tryst, a conspiracy, whatever. Ginny may secrety hate Harry but won't give up the position of being Mrs. Harry Potter.

Harry is happy. Harry may be blinding himself so he can think he really did win and he did get his happy ever after.

And maybe it is happy ever after. Not everything is angst and suffering and sometimes people do get to be happy. So it wasn't a smart, hip, sophisticated, ambiguous, "life is full of pain and our actions will haunt us, woe, woe" ending. Maybe they are haunted. Maybe it isn't our business anymore, they keep their nightmares to themselves and have gotten on with being alive.

I just finished reading the Salon review -- it's nice enough, but I really cannot recommend the letters in response highly enough. Comedy gold!

The whining and wailing and proclamations that Salon Is Now A Rag and I Have Lost Respect For You FOREVAR!!1! for posting so many horrible and highly specific spoilers before the book even came out!!1!!1 (despite the fact that the review was posted on the morning of the official release date and the only spoiler, that Harry survives and has kids, is safely hidden on page 2 behind a giant red WARNING! SPOILERS! tag)!

The indignant How Can You Waste Time On This Pap When We're In The Middle Of An Unjust War, You Bastards!

The smug Enjoy Your Kiddie Books And Your Action Figures, You Retards! More Proust For Me!

Gold, I tell you. Sheer gold.

And as to the actual book... I can barely think about it or I start crying. Hedwig! Mad-Eye! Umbridge's desecration of his eye, and Ron's crisis of conscience over the wife of the man he was impersonating! And Dobby. And the small matter-of-fact almost sidelong mention of Lupin and Tonks, which wrecked me more than an onstage death scene would have. And the echoes of Tolkien and Narnia and the perfect folktale rhythm of the tale of the three brothers who cheated Death and were cheated in return. And brilliant Hermione and lionhearted Neville and the Dumbledore family and Harry and the Stone and his family and... wah. I gobbled it all down between Saturday and Sunday night, and I may need to wait a few days and then reread, and then maybe I'll have something coherent to say.

Do we know anything about the order in which he made the Horcruxes? Obviously, Harry was last, and I'd make a bet at Nagini being the one before him. But other than that? I think we know what order he acquired the objects in -- diary at school, ring soon after from the Gaunt's house, then cup from the old woman, locket from the store, and then tiara from Albania?

The murder of his father was making the first Horcrux? So that would be the ring, which he then hid back at the Gaunt's? He killed his grandparents at the same time, but the only other object that he could have made into a Horcrux then would have been the diary. So either he was carrying around potential Horcrux objects for the ten years or so, or he made some of them into Horcruxes already. He can't have made too many yet, because when he came to ask for the job, he still looked fairly human. I'm guessing that the locket was one of the last ones, and that he hid it soon after he made it.

So that's: 1: Ring. I'll guess 2: Tiara. Then that leaves the cup and diary as 3 and 4, then the snake and locket as 5 and 6. Does that all make sense?

I thought he made the diary into a Horcrux when Myrtle was killed, but I don't know where I got that. And he hid the tiara when he asked for the job, right? He could have done the locket anytime after he acquired it and just worn it, but I agree that he hid it late.

Fawkes died permanently when he destroyed something with his phoenix flame. Or am I thinking of fanfic? Shit. I watched the movie, overdosed on fanfic, and then read 7. So I'm a little muddled on minor details.

The smug Enjoy Your Kiddie Books And Your Action Figures, You Retards! More Proust For Me

I love this soooooooooooooooo much.

My mother ordered a copy of the book, but I was far too impatient and picked up a copy at a Wal-mart in Ohio on Sunday, and then read it from 11AM to 7PM. I was satisfied with it--it didn't make me want to skip several hundred pages at a time and then check in later, which I was concerned about, and I liked the wrap-up and the stuff going on in the background and the Ron/hermione bit. There were a lot of exclamations from me during the book reading, especially when characters were killed, which earned me the title of "nerd queen" from my BFF for the rest of the weekend. Well-deserved, though.

I thought the epilogue was lame--I would rather have left it ambiguous, but again, that's the love of fanfiction talking, and I'm annoyed that now things must be worked around rather than invented otherwise.

Still, I was pleased with it. Though I am kind of relieved to be done.

I thought he made the diary into a Horcrux when Myrtle was killed, but I don't know where I got that.

Then that makes at least three that he made before going to ask for the job. I don't have Half-Blood Prince handy right now, but I seem to remember that he still looked mostly human then, so I'd wager as few as possible already made. He already had just about all the objects, though; maybe he was saving them to make the Horcruxes out of "special" murders?

I'm wondering about the diary now, though. The bit of his soul in that was was him at age 16ish. Was it that that was the age he was when he made it, or just that that was the age he was when he wrote it?

I was hoping to find out who Voldemort killed to make each Horcrux, Hil, because I had trouble figuring out the timeline myself, on when he acquired the items and turned them into Horcruxes.

I think we've got a pretty firm timeline on when he acquired the items. It's when he turned them into Horcruxes that's not so clear. He came back to ask for the job sometime in the mid-fifties, right? Harry's parents were born in 1960, so Sirius was too, so Regulus was a little younger than that. So when Kreacher hid the locket must have been the very late seventies. Voldemort giving the diary to Lucius Malfoy must have also been late seventies. Not quite sure what was going on with the cup -- did that get put into the Lestrange's vault during the first time he was powerful, or during the chronology of the last few books? Either way, all of this stuff was -- somewhere -- for a good 30 odd years.

Was it that that was the age he was when he made it

That's what I assumed, I can't remember now if there was any basis for thinking that. I'm thinking he made that Horcrux by killing Myrtle and only after succeeding there started thinking about further dividing his soul up.

Though it was explictly stated even in the last book that that Tom Riddle was a "memory come to life", so maybe they were two separate operations: investing the diary with a living memory and later making it a horcrux. And then both were undone by the basilisk tooth.

I'm not completely sure when Voldemort was in Albania, come to think of it. That's where he hopped on board Quirrell, but when he found the diadem I don't recall.

Eta: I'm also not sure how fast the physical changes happened after the soul splitting.