This is it! The last book in the Harry Potter series gets released Friday night at midnight, and I couldn't be more excited!! My friends and I will be walking down the road to the local Waterstone's bookstore in the heart of Oxford to claim our pre-ordered, prepaid copies of the final installment. There will be games, prizes, people dressed up as different characters, and of course the actual release at midnight.What makes this experience really cool beyond just receiving a book we've been anxiously awaiting for years is that there are parties in bookstores in the U.S., the U.K., and presumably any other bookstore releasing the book on Friday night. Sure, we'll get it five hours before those kids back in America, but we're all gathering for the same reason: we want this book and now we finally get our hands on it! We're celebrating the last hoorah (in terms of the book releases) because after this book, that's all she wrote. Literally.
The cover pictured above is the cover of the U.K. Children's edition of the book (which only differs from the U.K. Adult version in its cover art). And people have asked me what's the difference between the American and British versions of the books -- to tell you the truth, I'm pretty sure it's just colloquial stuff that's changed so that American readers don't read things like "biscuit" and think J.K. Rowling is referring to a fluffy, buttery bread product served at southern restaurants. But I'll let you know after I read the British version!
In other Harry Potter-related news, the newest HP movie came out on July 11/12 and I have yet to make my thoughts on the film known to all you readers out there. 2 of my friends and I went to see it the day it came out and thought it was brilliant! (I took this picture of the poster outside the theater on George Street in Oxford after we watched.) Honestly, making comparisons between the books and the movies is becoming redundant and futile because it's difficult to bring a 600- or 800-page book to the big screen without making significant cuts and changes. My sister told me that a friend of hers stopped comparing them a few movies ago for just that reason. In the end credits, it should just say "Inspired by the books by J.K. Rowling," not "Based on the books by J.K. Rowling."
But book/movie comparisons aside, this movie was pretty incredible! The action sequences we all expected were intense and pretty satisfying, and the banter between the characters was great -- mostly because they incorporated A LOT of the quotes from the books, which I give the writers and director a lot of credit for. Nice work, guys.
More to come after I read the final book...until then, I'll probably be pretty incommunicado because once I get my copy of the book, people won't see much of me until I finish. Can't wait!
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