I read them back last November (I think ... I did a post on it, but I'm too lazy to look it up and link to it) and I think my overall review went something like: okay, good, not great. I think the pregnancy hormones must have been getting to me because I'm kind of obsessed with these books now. I'm reading and re-reading them. They are dark, and my Pollyanna side wishes that there was more happiness in the end, or more light-heartedness, or something, but they are so good. The first one, The Hunger Games, is the best, if you ask me. Suzanne Collins is a phenomonal writer. These books deserve all of the hype they're getting, and I will probably make a point of going to see the movie in the theatre (although I said I would do that for Harry Potter, and I didn't, so ... who knows?). I mean, honestly ... such a good read.
I paid off my debt to the library and am in good standing with them again ... for the moment ... I read The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman - excellent, highly recommend it. It's historical fiction, about Israel and the time of the Roman Empire. I read We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, and while it's well-written, it's a total bummer and depressing and gave me an all-over creeped out feeling (it's the story of a ficitonal school-shooting/mass murder told from the perspective of the killer's mother ... so, you know, obviously an upbeat story). Since becoming a mom, I have trouble reading certain things now - like the aforementioned novel, I honestly almost quit reading halfway through because it's all about this poor woman's relationship with her son, how it's always been difficult, how he exhibited all of these signs of being a sociopath from infancy, and then he turns out to be a mass murderer ... so, like I said, total downer. Exhausting to read. But my point was that I probably could have read it prior to Jones and not have been as profoundly disturbed, but now, reading it while my sweet baby is snoozing in his crib, thinking about his sweet smiles and his giggles and the joy he brings to me ... it's just hard to read something that is so the opposite of those feelings and thoughts. Reading Harry Potter has changed for me too - I feel more maternal towards all of the characters now, especially orphaned Harry. Speaking of Harry Potter, bet you thought I had forgotten about my Harry Potter project (when, in reality, it's just that I am so slow about blogging). Well, wait no more: the final installment of my Harry Potter project is here!
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
"Dumbledore would have believed him, he knew it. Dumbledore would have known how and why Harry's wand had acted independently, because Dumbledore always had the answers; he had known about wands, had explained to Harry the strange connection that existed between his wand and Voldemort's ... but Dumbledore, like Mad Eye, like Sirius, like his parents, like his poor owl, all were gone where Harry could never talk to them again. He felt a burning in his throat that had nothing to do with firewhiskey ..."
"Harry sat down, took the square parcel she had indicated, and unwrapped it. Inside was a watch very like the one Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had given Ron for his seventeenth; it was gold, with stars circling around the face instead of hands.
'It's traditional to give a wizard a watch when he comes of age,' said Mrs. Weasley, watching him anxiously from beside the cooker. 'I'm afraid that one isn't new like Ron's, it wasw actually my brother Fabian's and he wasn't terribly careful with his possessions, it's a bit dented on the back, but - '
The rest of her speech was lost; Harry had got up and hugged her. He tried to put a lot of unssaid things into the hug and perhaps she understood them, because she pattted his cheek clumsily when he released her, then waved her wand in a slightly random way, causing half a pack of bacon to flop out of the frying pan ont o the floor."
"Ginny looked up into Harry's face, took a deep breath, and said, 'Happy seventeenth.'
'Yeah, thanks.'
She was looking at him steadily; he, however, found it difficult to look back at her; it was like gazing into a brilliant light.
'Nice view,' he said feebly, pointing toward the window.
She ignored this. He could not blame her.
'I couldn't think what to get you,' she said.
'You didn't have to get me anything.'
She disregarded this too.
'I didn't know what would be useful. Nothing too big, because you wouldn't be able to take it with you.'
He chanced a glance at her. She was not tearful; that was one of the many wonderful things about Ginny, she was rarely weepy. He had sometimes that that having six brothers must have toughened her up.
She took a step closer to him.
'So then I thought, I'd like you to have something to rememer me by, you know, if you meet some veela when you're off doing whatever you're doing.'
'I think dating opportunities are going to be pretty thin on the ground, to be honest.'
'There's the silver lining I've been looking for,' she whispered and then she was kissing him as she had never kissed him before, and Harry was kissing her back, and it was blissful oblivion, better than firewhiskey; she was the only real thing in the world, Ginny, the feel of her, one hand at her back and one in her long, sweet-smelling hair - "
"But they were not living, thought Harry: They were gone. The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents' moldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing. And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together, looking down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now, surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them. ... He put his arm around Hermione's shoulders, and she put hers around his waist, and they turned in silence and walked away through the snow ..."
"'I dunno,' said Ron. 'Sometimes I've thought, when I've been a bit hacked off, he was having a laugh or - or he just wanted to make it more difficult. But I don't think so, not anymore. He knew what he was doing when he gave me the Deluminator, didn't he? He - well,' Ron's ears turned bright red and he became engrossed in a tuft of grass at his feet, which he prodded with his toe, 'he must've known I'd run out on you.'
'No,' Harry corrected him. 'He must've known you'd always want to come back.'"
"Harry placed the elf into the grave, arranged his tiny limbs so that he might have been resting, then climbed out and gazed for the last time upon the little body. He forced himself not to break down as he remembered Dumbledore's funeral, and the rows and rows of golden chairs, and the Minister of Magic in the front row, the recitation of Dumbeldore's achievements, the stateliness of the white marble tomb. He felt that Dobby deserved just as grand a funeral, and yet here th elef lay between bushes in a roughly dug hole."
"'If she means so much to you,' said Dumbledore, 'surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother in exchange for the son?'
'I have - I have asked him -'
'You disgust me,' said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. 'You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?'
Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore.
'Hide them all, then,' he croaked. 'Keep her - them - safe. Please.'
'And what will you give me in return, Severus?'
'In - in return?' Snape gaped at Dumbledore and Harry expected him to protest, but after a long moment he said, 'Anything.'"
"'You have kept him alive so that he can die at the right moment?'
'Don't be shocked, Severus. How many men and women have you watched die?'
'Lately, only those whom I could not save,' said Snape. He stood up. 'You have used me.'
'Meaning?'
'I have spied for you and liked for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep Lily Potter's son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter - '
'But this is touching, Severus,' said Dumbledore seriously. 'Have you grown to care for the boy after all?'
'For him?' shouted Snape. 'Expecto Patronum!''
From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe: She landed on the office floor, bounded once across his office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.
'After all this time?'
'Always,' said Snape."
"And again Harry understood without having to think. It did not matter about bringing them back, for he was about to join them. He was not really fetching them: They were fetching him. ...
'You've been so brave.'
He could not speak. His eyes feasted on her, and he thought that he would like to stand and look at her forever, and that would be enough.
Harry looked at his mother.
'Stay close to me,' he said quietly."
"'Harry Potter,' he said very softly. His voice might have been part of the spitting fire. 'The Boy Who Lived.'
None of the Death Eaters moved. They were waiting: Everything was waiting. Hagrid was struggling, and Bellatrix was panting, and Harry thought inexplicably of Ginny and her blazing look, and the feel of her lips on his -
Voldemort raised his wand. His head was still tilted to one side, like a curious child, wondering what would happen if he proceeded. Harry looked back into the red eyes, and wanted it to happen now, quickly, while he could still stand, before he lost control, before h betrayed fear -
He saw the mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone."
"'And his knowledge remained woefully incomplete, Harry! That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped.'"
"'Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.'"
"'Oh, he dreamed of it,' said Harry, ' but he knew more than you, knew enough not to do what you've done.'
'You mean he was weak!' screamed Voldemort. 'Too weak to dare, too weak to take what might have been his, what will be mine!'
'No, he was cleverer than you,' said Harry, 'a better wizard, a better man.'"
"The bang was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead center of the circle they had been treading, marked the point where the spells collided. Harry saw Voldemort's green jet meet his own spell, saw the Elder Wand fly high, dark against the sunrise, spinning across the enchanted ceiling like the head of Nagini, spinning through the air toward the master it would not kill, who had come to take full possession of it at last. And Harry, with the unerring skill of the Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit in his pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward. ... and Harry could not hear a word that anyone was shouting, nor tell whose hands were seizing him, pulling him, trying to hug some part of him, hundreds of them pressing in, all of them determined to touch the Boy Who Lived, the reason it was over at last."
So wonderful, so very intense, though. I can't wait til Jones is old enough to read and understand the story. In about a month, we're going to wean him off of the nightly bottle, and I plan on doing this by introducing a story time with his sippy cup in order to distract him from the fact that he's not getting a bottle. I plan on reading a book on his level while he drinks milk from a sippy, and then either singing or reading to him while I rock him after he's done with the sippy, and I'll probably read Harry Potter to him, or maybe some Roald Dahl books. I love to read, and I want Jones to love it to, so I want to instill memories in him of being read to from a very early age.
Hopefully, all of the reading will result in this:
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