Harry Potter

This month I'm participating in Potter-thon I thought that I would do my first post for it by telling how I first came to love the Harry Potter books. As hard as it is for me to admit when the the books first came out I was stubborn as all hell and was determined to never read them. I was sickened by all the hype around them. While I was pleased that it was bringing so many children to the joys of reading I wasn't about to read the books myself. I don't know why I was so silly at the time. I swore that they would never live up to the hype around them. I found myself rolling my eyes whenever someone would swear to me that I just HAD to read them. I was in college as an English Literature major and one of my professors was considering having us read the first book for one of my courses. I almost walked out right then but fortunately/unfortunately most of the class vetoed reading the book. Yes, I was that stubborn that I almost dropped the class over one little book. I just have a thing over reading books or seeing movies that have so much hype. They just never live up to them. Case in point Twilight...sorry Twilight fans but I read the first book and couldn't get past the first chapter of the second. Complete and total dreck.

So how did I finally come to read the books? Well quite simply about 9 years ago I pulled a muscle in my back and was laid up in bed for over a week. One day I had HBO on and had lost the remote. Well guess what came on? That's right the first Harry Potter movie. I sat (or rather laid down) through the whole movie and begrudgingly had to admit it was a pretty good story. So I decided to set aside my prejudices over books with hype and simply put I read the first book. God why had I waited so long? It was good...It was great....it was and still is one of the best books I've ever read. From there I quickly devoured all of the other books. I became a convert. At this point I have read all of the books at least twice with the earlier books having been read many more times. When a new book would come out I would reread all of the books that came before it. Harry Potter now holds a special place in my heart. And just like for Harry, Hogwarts is like coming home for me. I want to live there and experience the staircases that move, pictures that move, seeing all of the ghosts including that nasty poltergeist Peeves. Ah Harry I'm home.