One Small Thing by Jessica Barksdale Inclan

Amazon.com

Powell's Books

[It might be hard to imagine this, but there are spoilers here for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows--if you have been living under a rock and/or eschew all common forms of entertainment, read no further lest I give you plot and character information that will tell you about this film you might never even see.  Just sayin'] 

Yeah, yeah, I read the various bad reviews of the latest Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part one).  Right.  I know.  Gritty, gray, long, depressing.  No one smiles.  There is no happy long table in the hall replete with delicacies (served up by enslaved elves, of course).  There is no sage wizard guiding Harry, Ron, and Hermione's lot this time, at least, that we can see.  There is a lot of bad camping (and I hate camping).  There is death (Mad Eye, Dobby), dismemberment (George's ear goes South) and despair, Ron finding his dark night of the soul.

But I loved it, from previews to credits.  And there's only one more Harry Potter film left.  I will be in mourning.

I love the story, the search for the truth, the rightings of long and terrible wrongs, the saving of the world as they know it.  I love the mystery, the magic, the long parade of all my favorite British actors.  I love Snape, his broken, tender heart buried under all those black robes.  For about two hours, I get to be a child again, back with all my favorite archetypes, but then the novels and the films bend those, the good not so good, the bad not so bad either.  But then that's an archetype in and of itself.

So go see the film, regardless of what those critics say.  If you are like me--one who read all the novels and saw all the films--you will be in some kind of Harry Potter heaven.  For those of you who don't, do a solid for your addict friend, and go with her.

Jessica