Post OOP: No real spoilers, mild writerly musings & one eyebrow waggle

[Tabouli]

For those who want not the slightest hint of what lies ahead, Stop Reading Now.  There are slight hints below.  No plot points, but hints and commentary on the writing.  For those who've read it already or those willing to torture themselves...
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
**
...I've finished OoP.  Still feel fleeced about the decidedly unromantic 9am Eastern Australian release, but ah well.  They actually had a countdown clock set up at Federation Square in Melbourne, with the 10yo winner of a competition there to cut open the first box of books.  Queued up, and had my copy by 9:30am, read scattered bits while my (less dedicated) friends talked of other things around me in (ahem) the McCafe (mine not to reason why McCafe, but McCafe they went to), came home a couple of hours later, and polished off the rest interspersed with a few conversations, meal breaks, and pauses for bouncing and glittering grins at a particular point in the text (waggles eyebrows mysteriously).

Actually, having read it, I'm glad she didn't push herself to finish it the way she rushed GoF.  GoF has its moments, but IMO it could have used much tighter editing.  On and on and on about the Quidditch World Cup and the tasks... gah.  OoP is longer, but (again IMO) better written.  Tighter, better control of dramatic tension, a feeling that everything in it was either necessary and important to the plot or tastefully rationed plot relief.  Much darker, as well, with the darkness better handled than it was in GoF.

I'm even considering nipping onto the main list when it re-opens to talk about it, and that's something I've done very little of for about a year...

Tabouli.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]