Well, it’s over. With The Deathly Hallows, J K Rowling brings the most successful series of children’s books ever to a definitive ending, tying up loose threads, revealing secret agendas and hidden histories, explaining motivations and culminating in a cataclysmic showdown between Good and Evil. But if readers are expecting an emotional wallop, I fear they may be disappointed. For all its epic swagger and portentous tone, the overall effect is rather like being pelted with softly boiled eggs…

Rowling has taken care to develop characters that might have been - or indeed, previously have been - stereotypes. There is room for generosity, not only towards Harry’s Muggle tormentors but to the misguided villains, the Malfoys. There are also moments of weakness for the heroic, and heroism from the weak. If part of growing up is seeing the world in shades of grey, then the Deathly Hallows succeeds, despite its black and white moral universe…

Fans will indubitably be delighted by the Deathly Hallows, and sceptics will find incontrovertible proof to sustain their position. For critics of a more psychological persuasion, the importance of motherhood in the Potter-verse takes a place tellingly centre-stage…

Source: Scotland on Sunday
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=3&id=1141342007