No Spoilers Here

I just finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows about 15 minutes ago. I’ve neglected washing, work, and food (but not sleep, though I also tried to neglect that, too) in order to read it, to inhale it, to drink it in with large, satisfied gulps. Reading a book hasn’t been this much fun since I was a kid sitting in front of a box fan on long, hot summer days working my way through a stack of books Mom had brought home from the library for me.

To discuss the book in any great detail would probably give away plot details that I absolutely refuse to divulge, but it should come as no surprise to anyone who has read the previous six Harry Potter novels that Rowling’s foremost strength as a storyteller lies in her ability to construct and maintain an enormously detailed plot that stretches over generations. Every major event in this book, the last of the series, is somehow foreshadowed or touched upon in one of the previous six books. She has created, not just a world and characters that live and breathe and fully come to life in millions of readers’ minds, she has created an intricate and immensely satisfying seven-book storytelling arc.

Anyone who enjoys the kind of arc-driven storytelling that infused works like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Babylon 5 will relish the way Rowling’s vast scheme unfolds over the course of all seven books. She said in an interview with NPR back in 1998 that she had already written the final chapter of the series, i.e. she had the entire arc planned, at least in outline form. Now the proof is here, and it doesn’t disappoint. That must have been one hell of an outline.