At last! Gair gave me this LJ account ages ago, followed more recently by the fabulous Eliot/McEwen icon (all hints should look that good), but I still couldn't work out what I wanted to use LJ for - until I read J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Gair's writing an HP fanfic set in an alternate universe that takes off around Order of the Phoenix and consequently can't read the later books, so, deprived of my regular book-analysing partner, I found myself remembering that I used to write a lot of reviews when I lived in Australia. I haven't missed reviewing at any point in the last three years but it suddenly seemed like an acceptable alternative to discussing the book with Gair.

However, I can't review Rowling in any seriously public forum, because I'm in the same line of work, which means people would just go, 'You're jealous' (I'm not being paranoid, they've already said it to A.S. Byatt and Terry Pratchett OMG) ... so at that point I remembered my LJ account and decided LJ was nicely positioned between public and private - private enough to let me indulge my hobby of JKR analysis, public enough to motivate me into finishing the review.

Which I have - but don't bother to read it if
(a) you know nothing about the Harry Potter series;
(b) you adore HP and JKR and don't want to hear anything against them;
(c) you might read DH one day and are still avoiding spoilers.

Otherwise, here goes.

( review )