Trolls under Hogwarts? I don't even remember that, but then I hadn't read any Harry Potter at all between the release of the sixth and seventh books.
Okay, I'm guessing spoilers are fine now since the book has been out a while.
Basically, my feeling is that the book just plain crapped out at the end. It started off kind of slow, and I'm sitting there going "hey when the hell are they going to start going after horcruxes already" and everything. Mad-Eye Moody was a painfully obvious death, but I didn't expect Hedwig to get it. I'm not sure why Hedwig had to die, either. But anyway, the first ~150 pages were dull with a few spots of interest, and I find Harry's whole angsting over Ginny crap to be just plain useless.
Then, toward the middle, the book really picked up. I had new hope in it. Even though Ron leaving has been done A MILLION TIMES I still didn't have much of a problem with it. But the all the little episodes of Godric's Hollow, Malfoy Manor, and especially the big Gringotts break-in I found outstanding. They were really intense. Great stuff. I was on the edge of my seat here, and I don't even like any of the three main characters.
Then the Hogwarts stuff started, and that's where the downhill spiral began. The whole "LETS BAND TOGETHER AND FEND OFF EVIL" was, like Ron's departure, DONE A MILLION TIMES. Still, the last part I really enjoyed was destroying the diadem. Then you get some pointless deaths (why the hell did she kill off Fred for Gods sake) and typical overdone "last stand against evil" muck.
Hooey, then we get to the real crap. The revelations themselves were fine, but they were so jammed in and overdone. Snape's story was okay, I think we got the point that SNAPE LIKES LILY way earlier than Rowling thought we did. There were some bits in there that could have been snipped out. And then you get that godawful chapter with Harry and Dumbledore in King's Cross. What the hell was that. I just felt that when Dumbledore was talking, it was like WE KNEW THAT ALREADY. Did he even say anything new?
And then, finally, we get the final battle. Mrs. Weasly vs. Bellatrix = AWESOME. Neville killing Nagini = AWESOME. But what the bloody hell was that fight between Harry and Voldemort. Jesus Christ, they just walked around each other in circles and then ZAP Voldemort's dead. You build this villain up for thousands of pages and that's it. Crap.
And then no mention of how George feels about Fred's death, no no. We just get this lame ending where everyone's perfect and happy la-dee-dah. I really think one of the four mains (Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione) should have gotten killed off. All the deaths were just of…dispensable characters, I guess, except for Snape, but for the purpose of his story, he kind of had to die.
Oh yeah, and I don't really get what the point of the Hallows was.
That's my take on it. Overall, most of the book is good, it's just dull at the start and craps out at the end. I guess I made it sound like I hate the book a lot more than I actually do, because I really did enjoy it. I, like most, just didn't like that ending, but it's kind of hard to not be disappointed by a big series ending, I guess.
 
