Firstly I would like to congratulate J. K. Rowling on finishing her series. It was an exciting series of tales, which sadly, I believe, deserved a better ending.
On the plus side, J. K. Rowling is back with her exhilarating and lucid narratives. The story unfolds very excellently and you get to know a TON about the pasts of various characters expecially Harry, Lilly, Dumbeldore and of course .Snape. The ending(minus the epilogue) is very nicely done and very bit as complicated as expected. But that’s where the good things end.
The book is not at all up the mark we have come to expect from J. K. Rowling. The plot is very predictable and there are not many of the usual twists and turns which we have come to love throughout the rest of the series. The book seems to revolve around Harry, Ron and Hermione. The other characters have been given hasty, but nevertheless, important parts in the book. A lot of important people die. At points it seems that the author is just rushing things as if in a hurry to just get it over with.
I would say that this book is not the best book in the series. However its has some very good parts. Take the series as a whole and I think that she has done a marvelous job.
My advice: If you are a casual HP fan or a new HP fan who just wants to start reading the series backwards(as I have done from the 4th book), I would seriously recommend to keep this book for the last unless you wanna loose faith in the series. For the die-hard people out there, well you must have already read the other books and wouldn’t keep your self from reading this book no matter what I say, so read on.