Today, after I wrote this post, someone from the forum sent me a private note about there having been a leak of the last book. I tracked the leak on the net and downloaded the book. I read the last chapter.
[spoiler]It’s called “Epilogue — Nineteen years later” and it tells the lives of the characters after the end of the story—just like Jo said she would probably do. I’m not gonna tell anything factual other than what I have just said, because I know many people are curious but end up regretting their own curiosity in the end. But let me mark here my impression: I was disappointed. Through time, as I read on the series, I had this feeling that Jo had stopped being a writer and started writing fan fiction of herself. The plots were shallow and not very well manipulated, the tools and twists she resorted to were cinematographic but didn’t have that literary thing, that which in the end makes books more interesting than cinema. Hell, even some fan fiction I read was better than the later books!
What I felt while reading the resolution of the characters’ lives was disappointment. I’m sure the book is full of turns and twists which will make you twitch in your chair as you read the book, but— Well, I suppose that, in the end, Potter was just meant to be yet another stupid story that won’t be remembered by anyone within a decade. Lets hope the leak I read was a hoax.
For the curious soul out there: once you get the book, and start to wonder whether or not it’s the same version that leaked and which disappointed me so much, open your copy on page 18. In the leak (supposed to be the Scholastic version, so this note is mainly for the Yanks), the page begins, “Albus’s brother, Aberforth, arrived at school.”[/spoiler]
As for myself, I’m not going to read the whole leak. Here’s what I’m going to do: now that I’ve read the last chapter (a fact that does not spoil anything for me, for I’m the “enjoy the whole thing” kind of guy, rather than a “get to the ending, get to the ending, the ending is sacred etc” freak), I’m gonna wait to borrow a friend’s copy; probably only gonna read it a lot later than you guys. I’m not in a hurry, really. Tomorrow, after confirming with someone whether or not the leak is indeed the real book 7, I’ll probably dump the files (to prevent from my own curiosity).