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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows [Book 7]
by J.K. Rowling

8.6 based on 16 reviews read critic reviews how did we calculate this? based on 207 votes read user comments rate this book

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• Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince [Book 6]

• EW's Harry Potter Wiki
• Official Author Site
• Official Publisher Site

The seventh book in this wildly popular fantasy series brings the series to an emotional, action-packed close.

Arthur A. Levine Books, 784 pages
07/21/2007
$34.99

ISBN: 0545010225

Fiction
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Teen

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Entertainment Weekly Tina Jordan

Despite the complicated plots and subplots, despite the effortless allusions to mythology and classic tales (anyone else think Harry is a little like King Arthur, and Dumbledore like Merlin?), Rowling winds up her tale with a stunningly beautiful simplicity. As an added flourish, she gilds it with a moving epilogue, one that brought tears to my eyes.

Los Angeles Times Mary McNamara

What Rowling has achieved in this book and the series can be described only as astonishing...To create such an extraordinary world, fill it with complicated characters and convergent back stories is beyond the reach of most writers. To sustain that world and grow those characters over seven books filled with plot twists, folklore and even a magical curriculum and then bring it all to an articulate, emotionally wrenching conclusion - that is a truly epic quest. [22 July 2007, p.E1]

Chicago Tribune Julia Keller

This is a deeply engaging book, filled with love and loss, with crackling action and almost unbearable heartbreak. Rowling resolves every question, ties up every loose end, and delineates characters' futures with a scrupulousness that never feels forced.

Boston Globe Liz Rosenberg

To have ended it perfectly, compactly, fully, would have been more heartbreaking than what we have here -- a holy, not an unholy, mess. Still, the series' accomplishment is staggering.

Christian Science Monitor Yvonne Zipp

Harry and Rowling rally their troops so successfully, it's almost painful to be stuck on the sidelines. As always, Rowling's greatest strength is the ability to whisk readers away to a fully imagined world.

USA Today Deirdre Donahue

Rowling effectively resolves these vital, end-of-series issues. The most gratifying aspect of Hallows is the way she unravels the series' central mystery: is the Harry-hating Hogwarts' professor Severus Snape good or bad? What motivates this complicated character? And the final dramatic confrontation between Voldemort and Harry is masterfully executed.

Washington Post Elizabeth Hand

I cried at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's that rare thing, an instant classic that earns its catharsis honestly, not through hype or sentiment but through the author's vision and hard work. One gets the feeling that J.K. Rowling is as relieved and joyous as we are to reach this point at last; that she's grown and suffered and struggled through the last 10 years, just like Harry. Just like us.

Chicago Sun-Times Matt Zakosek

It is a great pleasure to report that, in this instance, the outcome (almost) lives up to the hype.

Sydney Morning Herald Angie Schiavone

That so much is at stake is what sustains the reader's attention. Without this and our deep affection for Harry and his friends, Rowling's writing style would prove tedious. She leaves little to the reader's imagination, describing every emotion in great detail, and repeatedly.

The New York Times Michiko Kakutani

Getting to the finish line is not seamless — the last part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in the series, has some lumpy passages of exposition and a couple of clunky detours — but the overall conclusion and its determination of the main characters’ story lines possess a convincing inevitability that make some of the prepublication speculation seem curiously blinkered in retrospect.

Salon Laura Miller

Even though (as a grown-up) I did occasionally weary of Rowling's rudimentary romantic comedy and love-conquers-all moral -- and even though I found myself conscientiously ticking off her borrowings from a host of other fantasy classics -- I was still genuinely moved at the end.

Daily Telegraph Tibor Fischer

Potter fans will love this book (although I felt Rowling deferred gratification a bit too much, but then I'm not the target audience).

The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Sandra Martin

The HP-inspired reading bond between adult and child in our wired-up world has proved not only that the old technology still resonates, but that it can vaporize the artificial barrier that separates "suitable reading material" for children and adults. That is a huge achievement; I might even call it magical.

The Guardian John Mullan

Mysteries from earlier volumes are satisfyingly shown to be ripe for unravelling. Rowling has done her damnedest to round up events and minor characters from all the earlier books.

Publishers Weekly

We couldn’t put Hallows down ourselves. But we believe Rowling, and future readers, deserved even better.

New York Observer Mark Lotto

The Deathly Hallows fails, when it does, because it deviates from the Rowling formula. Whereas the previous six novels were structured like syllabi—their grace notes were class assignment, exams questions, semester breaks—the seventh has Harry dropping out of Hogwarts to wander aimlessly among exposition scenes and action sequences. It’s the conventional Grail quest and Hollywood through-line Ms. Rowling always spared us from—and I, for one, felt as nostalgic for their school days as I sometimes am for my own.

The average user rating for this book is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 207 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Greg H. gave it a10:
It's perfect.

Frank gave it a10:
For me, this book is a masterpiece, better than previous six HP books. Action sequences are very intense (I personally think that the fiendfyre was best, I can totally tell that filmmakers of seventh HP film will include that scene) and storyline was complicated, but not difficult to follow by fans who know HP universe well. I bought the book a day after its release and in few days I finished. It was much better than I expected, and I expected a lot! And I think that every fan will like it, as it provides lot of answers and relevations, even about things that I thought will be never mentioned again.

Erin S. gave it a9:
I absolutely loved this book. Once you start it, its almost impossible to set back down. Its a perfect ending to a wonderful series. Though I am sad to see them end, for I have grown up with the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling couldn't have wrapped up this series any better.

Gabriela A. gave it a1:
And I´ve been waiting so long for this book... I´d rather never finished the serie... Two great moments: the death of Dobby and the lifestory of Snape - but I guess everyone has ever known that he´d ever been a hero! The rest... a pathetic waste of time. Rowling wasn´t able to answer most questions that she spend ten years working on. There's no climax at all - why were we so afraid of Voldemort anyway, if everything works naturally well? The literarity quality of the book can also be discussed, at least if we consider the book as literature. The last chapter is ridiculous, most of the book is a lost of time. I felt Rowling wasn't ready to finish the serie, but she did it thanks to editorial pressure...

Cameron A. gave it a0:
Horrible. Harry and ginny share only one line in book. horrible ending. OVERRATED!

Mike N. gave it a7:
The book lacks a villain. Voldemort's sole motivation in Deathly Hallows is to catch and kill Harry. He doen't really have much of an agenda other than that. This just isn't enough to make him frightening or interesting. Rowling should have either made Voldemort a nasty main character, like Umbridge, or not shown him at all until the end. As it stands he simply shows up to be frustrated over and over, which greatly reduces his menace. As a result the denoument simply isn't very effective. Stylistically however, this is Rowling's best effort and the book had no trouble holding my attention.

Adam L. gave it a1:
I can't believe this is what passes for literary genius these days. I guess that's what happens when even the word 'literate' is an overstatement of the critical abilities of the masses.

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