My Harry Potter Experience
Am I the only one who never gave a rat's about the whole HP phenomenon? I read the first novel in one sitting, thought it was entertaining, though highly derivative of much more original and more interestingly written young adult fiction from the early to mid 20th century (Baum, Blyton, Eager, Enright, Kongingsberg, Nesbit, Ransome, to name a few). I immediately started the second one and felt like I had eaten too much cheap candy, so I basically lost interest. Then a few years later, we were subletting a wood-heated house that was wide open, with no way not to hear everything in the house. My brother-in-law came to visit with his family, and my nephew insisted on playing a later HP audiobook on the stereo, with the suggestion that we would all be very sorry if he didn't get his way. At the time, I was in the middle of the preparations for a stressful and demanding job interview process with all this convoluted crap with a bunch of stupid, cutesy-pie names blaring through the house, and that sealed my permanent antipathy toward all things Harry Potter (I got the job and this monster child grew into an amazing young man, btw). I've seen none of the movies, don't get the references, and look forward to the whole thing fading into oblivion.