I have just been INFORMED that it is time to "Go pick up our reserved coppy of the new Harry Potter before it's that
last one"
So, we will go haring off to the "Big City" where we have a pre-purchased copy supposedly on reserve. Well-written on the micro-level, I nevertheless have found the Potter books to be little more than the same plot over and over. Changing clothes, the story remains the same. *Yawn* Nevertheless, I'll probably read the thing if for no other reason than to be fair to it.
Oh, and the others have been “well-written on the micro-level”-dialog, descriptive narrative, action scenes, etc. are all well within acceptable (or better) levels of writing to be interesting. The plots are just sooooo predictable.
But that's OK, and well within parameters for the genre: contemporary children's literature that includes such well-written (but boooorrrring plotwise after the first book) series as the Lemony Snickett books. Even the older children's series that were very well-written such as the various Edith Nesbit books depended on predictable, repeatable plotlines, so I don't really hold that "defect" against the Harry books.
Well, off we go!
Update: Back again. Since Wonder Woman’s reading Eragon right now, I have been selected as the “designated reader” of Halfblood Prince. So far, so good. A completely avoidable continuity problem (dialog continuity) in the first 10 pages, but a little more interesting than the last X number of HP retreads, so far.