I was never a Harry Potter kid. I honestly harshly judged Harry Potter readers my entire life. I was a Series of Unfortunate Event's weirdo. I was a Lemony Snicket child. I was a member of VFD and I knew how to write acrostic poems.

  

Harry Potter was too popular. It was too cool. It was too massively praised. JK Rowling made too much fucking money (still does). It was TOO MAINSTREAM and edgy middle school me didn't want to be LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.

But I am so fucking old now. I pay taxes. I am a married woman. I get home from work at 6 pm and I change into my pajamas, complain about the government, rant about gen zer's, mention how different things were back in my day and fall asleep after a glass of wine.

I am too fucking tired of this world, I am too fucking tired of being angry at everything. I am too fucking tired of thinking about global warming, cancel culture, and the inability of my generation to afford housing. I just want to escape.

I am still a romance reader and romance lover. But I am not gonna lie, I am also so tired of the oversaturation this booktok market caused. Romance books have had the same rinse/repeat for a few months now. I read so many romance books in the last few years that it became almost impossible to find something that hasn't been done before. I have to read 20+ books just to find a new one I actually like. That might be my own fault. Or the market's fault. Or tiktok's fault. Where only the popular/same old ever sells. But I digress.

I decided to pick up Harry Potter for the first time in my life at the age of 27. Because of the culmination of these reasons. And because most of my best friends are Harry Potter fucking fanatics and they forced me to. And you know what? I am glad they did.

  

Listen, say whatever you want.

You can like this author, you can hate this author. You can think of Harry Potter as the most boring children's fiction that could ever exist in this world. You can think of her writing as simplistic, unremarkable, overrated... I mean, the woman is British and I can't even tell. And yet...

You cannot sit here, look me in the eyes, and tell me that what she has created here is not worthy of praise. The level of creativity, the characters, the world building by itself... All her controversy aside...

There is a reason why these books got movies. Hell, there is a reason these books got two entire amusement parks that make billions daily, and will continue to do so for years.  HARRY POTTER IS FUCKING MAGICAL .

There, I said it.

  

Don't tell me that you would not even set foot in an Universal Park if you didn't get a chance. I myself have been twice and even without reading the books, or watching all the movies, that shit was emotional.

Separating the craft from the creator, and even if I don't - as an editor - I'd never be able to sit here and tell you this world building isn't the most fantastic thing I have read in my life.

So, you know what? Politics aside, do fucking read Harry Potter. Do love this series. Do talk about it to this day and to pass it along to your children, because I for sure will.

Some things will exist and live on despite of their makers. And I can't for the life of me hear another one of my friends tell me: oh god, I feel so guilty about loving Harry Potter still. God, I am afraid to talk about it online.

Well, I am fucking not.

  

I sat on my couch with this book at the age of 27 and all of a sudden I was inside of that train with Harry. I was touching that letter, I was hugging Ron after my Quidditch match. I was scared for my life when Hermione got stuck in that bathroom with the stupid dumb troll and for a few hours, I was a kid again. I had fun. I was immersed. I couldn't put the book down.

If that's not a good book, I don't know what is.

So yeah, I am too old to be wasting my time trying to prove strangers on the internet I am a good person. I know what I stand for, I make a difference in political matters when voting. I actually care about things that count. I am active in ways that will make a difference for the people I want to protect.

And I am also too fucking old to be burning Harry Potter books at the stake because it's author has opinions I disagree with.

So here I stand before you, good reads community, and I absolve the child in you. I give you permission to love and appreciate Harry Potter like you always have.

The child in you never had ill intentions, the child in you didn't have all that prejudice talk instilled into you. The child in you just wanted to escape. So do. Do escape to Hogwarts. Allow yourself to keep all the magnificent things this series has brought to the world. And do support your local library while you're at it for your September yearly reread.

I know who I am.

I am a fucking Gryffindor. (I took the test lol)

Onto the next book. Can't wait to read Dramione fanfic.

n  n

On this occasion of having now read the first book of this mega bestselling and loved series for a third time; I feel that as time passes this book and series lean towards being generally deemed as 'modern classics'. Despite all the hype and adulation, it really is a wonderful book and a wonderful read, but not really my cup of tea. This might simply be because I never read it as a child; it might be because that Hermione is so well written, that I wished it was her series; it might be because Harry and Ron are so well written as young boys, that I can't stand them, and have no empathy for their characters. I'm a much bigger fan of The Weasley twins, Luna, Snape and Neville! 6 out of 12, Three Star read :)

2013 read; 2007 read; 2005 read

n  n

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone was first published exactly 25 years ago on 26 June 1997. On this special occasion of celebrating 25 years of Harry Potter, I will share my personal experience with this book here.

Some years ago, I was a young child when the first Harry Potter book became a sensation. I was a lazy kid who thought that books, especially novels, were overrated and a waste of time. My only acquaintance with them was a couple of the Secret Seven books by Enid Blyton.

My father is a voracious reader. He knew I would start loving books if I found out how amazing books are. He never forced me to read. He just told me the importance of reading and kept a few books like the Secret Seven, Sherlock Holmes, and the first Harry Potter on my table. I still never bothered even to touch it.

One day I was stuck in my home and had nothing else to do. So I simply took the Harry Potter and the philosophers stone and decided to read just five pages. After that, I could not put the book down (just like all other kids); I discarded eating my lunch and finished reading it in just a single sitting. From that day onwards, I started loving books. I never stopped reading after that day. I am proud to say that after high school, I have been following a routine of reading at least ten pages from some book every day. I didn't drop this routine even during tough Med School exam time. This hobby has helped me a lot in developing my personality. It gave me patience and empathy and helped me a lot to become a Doctor. I have to thank my father, J.K. Rowling, the Harry Potter series, Enid Blyton, and Nandanar for developing this reading habit in me.

My favorite character in this book is Harry. It is because of his simplicity, vulnerability, and innocence. There is one more important reason why I love Harry. Yuval Noah Harari perfectly mentioned it in his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Harry was removed from his distinguished family and brought up by ordinary muggles, and he arrived at Hogwarts without any prior experience in magic. Nothing was given to him on a silver platter. He had to struggle and work hard to become the best. All the hard-working people who had to struggle in their life will find Harry as their inspiration. He is not the best in everything he does. He is vulnerable with all the negatives and positives like every one of us. JK Rowling shows every young kid you will succeed if you work hard despite the hardships through Harry's character.

Later, every character became my favorite, and they were like my close friends. When I enter a great educational institution or library in my life, the first thing that comes to my mind is, wow, it looks like Hogwarts. That is the standard that JK Rowling built through this book. Hogwarts (even though fictional) is the gold standard for educational institutions for every book lover in this world.

Harry Potter is the book in which I have seen the best world-building. It is amazing to see the author giving mannerisms to certain characters keeping in mind that they will be used for the final book several years later.

Rereading the 25th anniversary edition of this book will give you a special feeling. Harry, Ron and the Weasley family, Hermione, Dumbledore, Hagrid, Hedwig, platform 9 3/4, Hogwarts Express, Hogwarts, Quidditch, Nicholas Flamel, Draco, Snape, and even Voldemort will all bring nostalgia to everybody's mind who grew up reading Harry Potter.

Harry Potter is not just a book; it is an emotion! I am feeling blessed, like the author, the publishers, and all the fans of Harry Potter, for being able to celebrate this book for the last 25 years.

“I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed - or worse, expelled. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to bed.”



I haven't read JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone since reading it aloud to my son about 15 years ago (probably with the Sorcerer's Stone title). Reading it was like walking down Memory Lane. So nostalgic. Reliving Harry Potter's adventures was such a fun experience! That is all!

I used to hate Harry Potter.



Now before you hoist your pitchforks and torches, allow me to explain.

When I was a wee child of six, my dad decided it'd be a good idea to introduce me to the series—starting from the Goblet of Fire.

Back then, I was a vivacious reader, but mainly of chapter books, like Junie B. Jones or Bailey School Kids. The thickest book I'd read was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.



So when my dad plunked this gigantic doorstopper of a book in front of me, I quickly lost interest and deemed Harry Potter boring and overhyped. I carried this opinion through my teenage years, rolling my eyes at the people who'd pillaged bookstores at midnight and refusing my uncle's generous offer to purchase me the entire series because he knew I liked to read.

Fast forward to 2009, when I was deep in the clutches of Twilight and desperate for something to fill the power vacuum Breaking Dawn had left. Then I stumbled across Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in my school library.

"What the hell," I'd thought. "There's nothing else to read anyway."

I'd settled on a cushy couch, flicked to the first page and laid eyes on this: "Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."

It was all over for me.

I read past the tardy bell, begged the librarian to let me keep it, even though we weren't allowed to check out books that early on in the school year. I zoomed through it in class and snuck the Chamber of Secrets and the Prisoner of Azaban home under my coat. I even pleaded my mother to haul The Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, those thick, heavy hardbacks, home from her school's library (my mom's a teacher), so I wouldn't be left Potter-less during the weekend.

Having come across them long overdue, I knew major spoilers, including who would die in the end, yet it still broke my heart when I read The Deathly Hallows.



There are no words to describe how much I love Harry Potter, and how much I want to smack my 14-year-old for obsessing over a controlling, douchebag vampire when I could have been laughing and swooning at Fred and George Weasley's antics.



I am not part of the Potter generation. But I wish I had been.

A re-read for me, this time with my son (who is very reluctant to read anything). This took such a long time, but we finally finished it after months and months, and he's rated it 5 stars! Good grief, if Harry Potter doesn't get him into reading, what hope have I got

It is a bewildered girl who writes this. After all, her mind reasons, isn’t this THE children’s series? The best thing to have hit the bookstores since Narnia? There must be something tragically wrong with me. Surely my mind has twisted this into something other than what’s really there. Right?

Unfortunately, I don’t think so. You see, I’ve realised something. I might only have just finished book one (yeah, I’m just a little behind the times), but I’ve realised something. Harry Potter is a Mary Sue, Gary Stu, Marty Stu, whatever you want to call him. Let me say it again.

HARRY POTTER IS A SUE.

No wonder it was boring and bothering me so much. I can hear you future readers (at present I have exactly none) demanding to know why, just why, I think he is a Sue, and how dare I? Those of you who haven’t fainted, that is.

*puts on mafia boss accent* You wanna know why? Let me count the ways. If you could just keep track on your fingers–oh, it looks like you’ll need your toes as well–that would be really helpful.

Right. Here we go.

1. He’s hated by all the nasty (some of them ridiculously evil) people.

2. And liked by all the good ones.

3. He has a cool scar, black hair, and green eyes. Like, yeah. He looks cool. This is the reason I stay away from the black hair/green eyes combo in my own writing: it’s really something that gets doled out by most authors to their specialest favouritest characters. And boy, is Harry Potter special or what?

4. He’s famous. Not only that, but everyone bows to him in the street. I think we just discovered Buddha’s successor.

5. He’s rich. Insanely rich. What are the odds?

6. He got into the best school for magic around. Without even applying.

7. He’s a Gryffindor, the most fantabulous house in the school.

8. He’s fantastic at broomsticking even though he’s never had any practice whatsoever.

9. Immediately, instead of getting punished for breaking the rules, he gets put on the Quidditch team even though it’s unheard of for someone so young to be there. And this is after the teacher sees one single display of catching a Remembrall. Ever heard of beginners’ luck? Adrenaline-fuelled ability, perhaps? Heightened senses? With all this, she still decides that Harry should be in the Quidditch team.

10. Continuing the theme of complete and utter Sueness: FREE BROOMSTICK! Not only that, it’s the latest in broomstick technology.

11. He got given his broomstick by a teacher. I will leave you to guess the phrase that applies here. Starts with ‘t’ and ends with ‘eacher’s pet’. Wow. You got it. Tell me, have you applied for Mensa yet?

12. He then impresses everybody on the Quidditch team with his special specialness to such an extent that he’s likened to the greatest Quidditch player in a hundred years (who was also definitely older than Harry when he played Quidditch).

13. Invisible cloak. He’s got all this, and then to add to it, he gets an invisible cloak.

14. He’s smart.

15. He’s brave.

16. He’s good at magic. These last three combined are a Sueness Overload in themselves.

17. And yet, even with all these qualities, he’s so generous and brave, is purported to have such good judgement, etc., that you feel as if the urge to like him is being shoved down your throat, stirred until properly combined, and left to set for three hours.

18. This is the part that made me almost throw up: Hermione, for no good reason, throws her arms around Harry and tells him how great he is, and that she’s basically not worth half of what he is. Just stuff some more Sueness down our throats, why don’t you, J?

19. Harry just escaped major Sue-ity again because Neville Longbottom’s final points are the ones that win Gryffindor the House Cup/Trophy/thing. Still, Ron and Hermione win a generic fifty points each. Harry, of course, has to get sixty. Minor Sue-ness.

20. Yeah, he loses Gryffindor a massive 150 points, but he gets it all back, doesn’t he? Being treated like an outcast doesn’t really seem to have made an impression on him at all.

21. Instead of being punished for heading into the third-floor corridor, he is rewarded. Now, make no mistake, I do see that there are times when we should break the rules for the right reasons. But surely, to maintain order, shouldn’t the ‘perpetrators’ be punished on the surface of things? Surely Harry should be given grunt work or detention or something, right? Wrong.

22. The way he was saved from the evil Lord Voldemort is by nothing other than Pure Love. *cue sparkles*

23. Dumbledore turns out to have given Harry the cloak. Surely, having been a teacher for many years, he would recognise what mischief kids get up to, and would really NOT want a boy whose friends include the brother of Fred and George Weasley to have access to an invisible cloak. Or, if it comes to that, any kid at all. T-E-A-C-H-E-R-S-P-E-T.

I wouldn’t care if HP only displayed a couple of these characteristics, but he’s got the whole lot! The thing that really drives me up the wall is that surely this should be the ultimate guide for what not to do when writing a book, and yet… and yet… it’s a bestseller. It’s not sour grapes that keep me writing this post. It’s sheer confuzzled amazement.

The writing style is boring and forgettable. No description to speak of, no real thoughts. There are some allusions to historical figures and terms, and so on, but they aren’t presented in an interesting way. And couldn’t we have at least met Nicholas Flamel?

The morals in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone are negligible at best. It’s just me, me, me propaganda in disguise—one lying, sneaking, and even ‘immobilising’ episode after another. And that’s from the so-called ‘good’ characters.

Cliché after cliché abounds in this book. It’s there in Dumbledore’s white beard. It’s there in Harry’s surprisingly quick Quidditch triumph. It’s there in Professor Quirrel’s turban. And most of all, it’s there in Draco Malfoy, a character so flat he could’ve been made out of paper and then run over with a steamroller and his original shape would have been slightly rounder.

Added to which, the plot is so unoriginal. Can anyone say ‘Cinderella’? Orphaned child mysteriously left with a mean, boring family who doesn’t want him and treats him terribly. Discovers that he really belongs to a world beyond his wildest dreams. And that he’s very, very rich. Almost immediately, he’s at home there. Sure, he has his enemies, but who doesn’t? And they get dealt with anyway. Added to which, it turns out that his parents are super-cool.

If that’s original, then I’m Neville Longbottom’s true love. Turns out everybody who keeps calling this original is Neville's honeybunchkins.

I had to struggle to finish this book. Really struggle. I had it out from the library for nine weeks because I kept putting it down for ten days or so, then realizing I should probably finish it to see if it got better. I’d pick it up and realise that I’d forgotten what had happened before, meaning I had to go back to the beginning and start all over again. This, as you may well imagine, drove me nuts.

Eventually, with the help of SparkNotes, I managed to figure it out and I’ve just taken book 2 out of the library. I’m wondering if it gets any better. After all, J.K. Rowling’s run out of Cinderella storyline. Considering how much people love this series (to me at this point in time, they are inexplicably popular), I’m not going to end with a pessimistic “I don’t think so”. I might go with something more like this:

It’s got to, right? Right???

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*Disclaimer: As I am not at this point in time a Harry Potter fan, I’ve probably gotten a couple of things wrong, although I’ve checked and double-checked to the best of my ability. (If you see any errors, please comment and let me know.) However, even if a few things are a bit off, there are still about twenty points on this list. Surely that’s enough to merit consideration anyway.

Dove sono stato tutto questo tempo senza averlo letto?

Mi ha fatto sognare talmente tanto che, al momento di "Gli studenti di Hogwarts potranno portare un rospo; oppure una civetta; oppure un gatto" mi sono immaginato in viaggio verso la scuola di magia con la mia gatta cicciona sottobraccio.
Il fatto che non mi ricordassi solo vagamente del film (visto un paio di volte da piccolo) mi ha aiutato a farmi coinvolgere e spiazzare dai colpi di scena. L'ho amato.

We don't support transphobes in this house

This is a disgrace to all pure bloods. My head looked quite dashing on that strange professor's head.. If only I could have extended my stay. Harry Potter.. This is not over yet.

I decided on a whim to reread the Harry Potter series this year and flew through this one in an afternoon. This series is my favourite from childhood, and I haven't reread any of them in the past 10 years! It was so cozy and comforting to be back in this world and with some of my favourite characters in the world. My reviews will probably become more substantial when I get to some of the longer books, but I already know that rereading this series will be one of the highlights of my reading year!

Update – 4/4/2022 – Reread out loud to my kids

Both of my kids were born after the whole Harry Potter series was released. They are now old enough to start appreciating the story so I thought it would be fun to read it out loud to them. While it did take us a while because, you know . . . life happens . . . we were able to find a few minutes every few nights or so to read a chapter or part of a chapter. It was really fun to see them getting into it.

They are looking forward to watching the movie and starting in on the Chamber of Secrets!

Original review:

One of my first jobs was at a bookstore. When I was a kid my Mom would take me to the mall and I would spend tons of time hanging out at Waldenbooks (who here remembers Waldenbooks?) Right when I became legally old enough to work, I went in and submitted my application and a few weeks later I was selling literature to the masses.

Why do I tell you this story on this review, you ask? Well, at the time, young adult/teen literature consisted mainly of RL Stein, Christopher Pike, Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, and a few other classic Newberry Award winners, but certainly we did not have a YA section to the extent you see it today.

Towards the end of my tenure at Waldenbooks - as Oprah's book club was hitting its stride and Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus was in its bazzilionth week on the New York Times best seller list - a book display arrived featuring a buzzy new title about a certain boy wizard. I remember the display at the front of the store, and selling a few copies, but I didn't realize what it would become.

A few years later (early 2000s), I had kinda gotten out of the loop on what was big in books. I had just finished college, which had taken up most of my free reading time. A friend of mine named Bronco (yup, real name, not a nickname, who also was the Best Man at my wedding) had a copy of this book on his coffee table. Holy cow! Here is that same book we were selling at Waldenbooks about 5 years before - what was he doing with it!?

Well, he said it was good, so I borrowed it. I quickly plowed through the first 4 books and then got the pleasure of joining the world in waiting for the release of Order of the Phoenix. And, I noticed when I went to the bookstore, the YA section and selection was not so small anymore. I truly believe it was Harry Potter that opened the door to get more young adults (and even adults, of course) reading and authors interested in writing for that genre.