I finished it myself and I would have to give it a B. It was about what I expected but I was hoping for a bit more closure at the end.
Sorry chummer, but if she got into all of that drek, we would have been reading a Stphen King Novel. Quite often, an ending in the vein of HO #7 is the best way to end a story. You get closure for the main characters, and yet it leaves enough material opened to interpretation to let your imagination fill in the blanks. It also stops an uneccessarily long and drawn out quasihistory of the entire setting, which ultimately degrades the work.
And I've said it before, and I'll say it again: J. K. Rowling is not a very good author (although she has improved tremendously since #1) but she had a good story. J. R. R. Tolkein was the same way. Great story, drekky writing style. And at least you can't say that the Harry Potter books were "derivitive of Tolkien" like nearly every other fantasy work gets labled these days.
Gabriel
Gabriel