spectru
2/6/2015
The culmination of the Harry Potter series and the best of the lot. The first four books are cute and whimsical and fun to read, but rather formulaic, Then things begin to get sinister and the plot thickens. The climax involves murder, torture, treachery, and mayhem. It is really a page turner. These seven books are a rarity in my experience. Each book builds on the previous one; each tells its own story, but in sequence they build to a smashingly good climax.
It's touch and go as Harry takes on the forces of evil: the sinister Lord Voldemort and his followers, the Death Eaters. It's hard to fathom how otherwise upright citizens of wizard society could so loyally support Voldemort, whose blind ambition for power is fed by total bigotry against anyone not of pure wizard blood. It's the same as Adolph Hitler gaining power through the staunch support of the Nazi party. And today, ISIS publicizes its atrocities to attract recruits. What kind of misguided mind would find such things appealing? Even here in the USA there are those who unquestioningly follow political ideology that is so blatantly off-kilter in some respects, clearly against their own best interests--and yet they can't see it. I guess it is the Orwellian concept of doublethink.