For the last several months I've been explaining my "Harry Potter Plan" to my friends and family.
This plan, while fitting ideally with my usual "Reread all the other books before a new one comes out" plan, didn't go nearly as well as I'd hoped.
In actuality it went something like this:
While a bit frustrating for me I eventually started lapping up the other books just fine. About a week ago I found out that a friend of mine who I'm going out to dinner with on August 10th had already finished the 7th book. My new goal? Finish reading all 7 books by August 10th. This looked pretty unlikely given that I had to read an average of about 180 pages a day in order to make my goal. "How am I doing," you might ask? Well, I've been reading like crazy, more so than usual. I'm not sure how many pages a day I've been reading but it's been more than 180. I just now finished rereading book 6 (The Half-Blood Prince) and can now jump into The Deathly Hallows. I wanted to write this post because I suddenly realized how depressing it is that The Deathly Hallows is the last new Harry Potter book that I will ever read. Ever since I found out the J.K. Rowling was only ever going to write 7 books I applauded her for it. There are certain authors that, despite claims that they'll only write a certain number of books in a series, go on and on and on until readers are so bored with the story that they just stop reading altogether. Some may argue that situations like this are not because the author is going for more money but because the author wants to continue developing the world that he or she has been creating. From the fan point of view I can truly see it both ways. When you truly love a story you can very easily get emotionally attached to the characters and want to know more about them... as much as possible. On the other hand if the stories keep going on and on the author may make a "mistake" and forever ruin the character(s) for the fans. It's definitely a fine balance but I think Ms. Rowling has not only done wonderfully with the story but has been good at sticking to her original intentions.
There is a part of me that wants to read more Harry Potter books after this one but the majority of me has decided that, yes, this was the right thing to do with the books. At least we'll have the last two movies (or, in my case, the last three movies). And, with that I'm going to start book 7.