Potter!

Well it took me a lot longer that it should have due to some distractions and honestly a little bit of fear of it being over.  I have to say the books, in my mind, lived up to every ounce of hype; they were awesome.  Since that's two popular series down I thought a bit of comparison was in order: as you recall I ranted about my dis-taste for the ending of the Twilight saga, Stephanie Meyer just "ended" the book.  All events key to the ending Twilight (a sereis that spanned 4 books) came to a head in the final chapters of book 4, there was very little in the way of meaningful ties back to past events.  It was all too convenient.  Fast forward to Rowling and the Harry Potter series.  Events were set into motion throughout the entire series leading the characters to the end.  The final chapters were a flurry of closing circles and storylines that had been in place for several books.  Even the final battle scene drew off of things put into play well in advance of the final pages.  To put in bluntly it was just a more intelligent book.

I'm not trying to bash Twilight (okay maybe I little, I really loathed the ending of that series and still resent it because a) I invested time reading 4 books and 2) I took man-point hits because it's predominately a girls book), so I was very happy to see an  ending that drew off of the foundation that was built over the course of the series so didn't feel like it just fell into the main characters' laps on the final days.  It felt like the previous six books counted for something and the events that transpired over my time with the characters meant something, contributing to the story and experience in totality, whereas in Twilight I just didn't feel that.

Overall, I highly recommend this series it was far better than I'd imagined and will make you appreciate the movies even more.  I really wanted to write a lot more but don't have the time to sit down and think it out to really do my feelings  justice.  Simply put it this way, I borrowed the books and even now being done with the story I will likely purchase the lot of the, I liked it that much.