I had removed this review, which violates Article 2 of the Terms of Use:You agree not to post User Content that: (i) may create a risk of harm, loss, physical or mental injury, emotional distress, death, disability, disfigurement, or physical or mental illness to you, to any other person, or to any animal.Looking at the comment thread, it is abundantly clear that the review not only may, but indeed has caused emotional distress to several Potter fans. I would like to offer my apologies to these unfortunate people, who had every right to expect better service from Goodreads. But, despite the above, I have decided on mature consideration that I will attempt an experiment: I am reinstating the original review, hiding the dangerous and inflammatory content inside a spoiler tag. If you are a person easily offended by negative comments about Harry Potter and still decide to click it, then you have only yourself to blame. You have been warned.(view spoiler)[I got into an argument the other day with an articulate 17 year old Harry Potter fan - let's call him D - who wanted to know why I was being so nasty in my review of Deathly Hallows. What was wrong with it? I offered various structural criticisms: the ending is abrupt and unconvincing, the subplot with the Horcruxes has not been adequately foreshadowed in the earlier volumes, and the book as a whole is overlong and boring. D expressed surprise that I could call Deathly Hallows boring, when I'd given five stars to Madame Bovary and Animal Farm, both of which he considered far duller. The discussion continued for some time. In the end, I said I would write a review summarising my objections to the series as a whole. Here it is.As I said to D, it's not the books or the author. The early Potter books are cute and entertaining, and J.K. Rowling seems like a nice person - if someone's going to scoop the literary Powerball jackpot, why not her? What I very strongly object to is the way the books have been marketed. About 10 years ago, it seems to me, some clever people figured out a new marketing strategy, which they first applied to Potter; when that came to an end, the same methods were used for Twilight. Both series have enjoyed a level of success which is utterly disproportionate to their quality, and which is also unprecedented in literary history. Twilight clearly follows Potter; I've had several discussions about what preceded Potter, and the answer, everyone seems to agree, is that there was no earlier success story of this kind. Before Potter, there was no YA series of dubious merit that absolutely everyone read. I think it's uncontroversial that Potter, in terms of literary quality, is better than Twilight, but Twilight has been even more successful. At one point, the four volumes occupied the top four spots in the New York Times bestseller list. On Goodreads, nearly half of the top 50 reviews are of Twilight books. This is an absurd and unnatural state of affairs. Even though Twilight may not be quite as bad as is sometimes made out - I'm one of many people who have tried to defend it - there's no way it deserves this level of attention.So why is everyone reading it, and why, before that, was everyone reading Potter? As I said, I think it's primarily about the marketing, though I wish I was more sure about the details. Here, at any rate, are some thoughts. First, the publishers are aggressively using economies of scale and deals with third parties. They print very large numbers of copies, and they work together with movie studios, game companies and merchandisers to cross-promote them. I think it's particularly important that a large proportion of the books are sold, not at bookstores, but at normal supermarkets. It's well known that the cover price is usually marked down to the point where the supermarket is not in fact making any profit; they have discovered that they can successfully treat it as a loss leader. This is causing great pain to independent bookstores. Some of them, I have read, have adopted the desperate expedient of buying copies at supermarkets and then reselling them. Second, let's look at the content and style. Even though Potter and Twilight are fairly different in some ways, they also have many strong similarities. Above all, they are extremely easy to read, at every level. The vocabulary is unchallenging; the sentences are short and simple; most characters are one-dimensional stereotypes; the story is uncomplicatedly plot-driven; there are few references to other works of literature. You can read these books if you're tired, if you're sleepy, if you have poor reading skills, if you've never read anything else. They consequently have a very large potential audience.Third, they describe a comforting, emasculated world in which most of the things that make our own world so difficult and unpleasant have been removed. Most strikingly, there is no sex; in Harry Potter, which is supposed to be about fairly normal teens, no one masturbates, no girls get pregnant, none of them are labelled sluts because they've had sex with more than one boy (sometimes one is enough, for that matter), no one gets their heart broken and drops out of school or starts taking drugs as a result, no one is stuck in a dead-end relationship that they wish they could escape from, but can't. The worst thing that happens in either series is the sequence in New Moon where Edward temporarily leaves Bella. Meyer notoriously doesn't describe Bella's feelings at all, but just leaves several pages blank. Once, in fact not so long ago, most adults would have been embarrassed to be seen reading YA literature of this kind; to start with, the comforting word "YA" hadn't been invented yet, and they would have been reading children's books. Somehow, there's been a shift in standards. You look around you on a bus to see what people are reading, and you can be pretty sure you'll see at least a couple of people over 20 engrossed in Potter or Twilight. It's odd that this has happened, and I wish I understood why.In conclusion, I couldn't help being struck by the two books D chose to contrast against Potter. D, Madame Bovary is going to outlast both of these authors because Emma is a real person who experiences the crazy and contradictory emotions that real people experience when they are very unhappy, and as a result she behaves in a crazy and contradictory way; also, Flaubert, unlike Rowling and Meyer, took a great deal of trouble over his prose, and created some of the most beautiful and ironic passages in world literature. There aren't many books I'd call masterpieces, but this is one of them. And finally, Animal Farm is indeed an allegory of the Russian Revolution. More importantly, though, it's about how smart, unscrupulous people manipulate trusting, weak people. Tens of millions of people are reading Potter and Twilight, not because the books are well-written or interesting, but because the readers have been manipulated into buying them by the Napoleons and Squealers of this world. That's what I'm objecting to. Think about it for a moment. (hide spoiler)]
I AM A POTTERHEAD. So for me, these would be the best books ever!!! No matter how other "cool" people would say that I am a geek and even too old for those books, who cares, I'm even proud of it!I know I have just read this series when I was in high school, and I just borrowed my classmate's books then, yet I am still proud to say that IT DEFINITELY CHANGED MY LIFE.Ever since I was in elementary school, I have always loved reading, and yet at some point, and I forgot how, I suddenly stopped. And when I got hold of these books from my friend, I knew I held something special and different. After reading all of the 7 books my friend lent me, I was smitten. I didn't stop to think twice and bought a box set of these books at one of the book fairs in our school because I said to myself: I've got to own all of these books! I remembered asking my parents for the money to buy that box set as my Christmas gift, even though it was only the month of August back then. Sorry, I just had to have them! :)) And thank goodness I did, because I became a part of a phenomenon, the Harry Potter Generation!I can't even find the words to justify why I love Harry Potter because there's just so many reasons. For one, I love Hogwarts and this whole magical world that JK Rowling has so graciously brought upon all of us who has read this series. Second, the way Rowling told us a story so easy to relate with and love, and which had made me laughing, crying, scared, and smile by the end of each book! Lastly, all those innumerable amount of quotes, experiences, and lessons that I have learned out of this book. I have learned the value of unconditional love through Harry's parents and actually a lot of other characters also; the power of true friendship through Ron, Hermione, and Harry, and even the Order; the value of family through the Weasley's; and the yearning for forgiveness, courage, wisdom, and happiness amidst all the chaos that may have been happening in our lives. In short, it was a fantastic and magical escape from this maddening world we're living in.I know I am no writer that could convince everyone of how amazing the harry potter books are, in the end it still is up to the reader. But let me tell you this, give it a chance, and I promise you it'll give more than what you're expecting. By the end of those 7 books, I didn't feel like I've finished another story, it felt like a chapter of my life has also ended and that I had to say goodbye to a new-found special friend. I've experienced a whole lot more than a "book and movie hangover". I literally cried after reading the last book and watching the final movie. Yes, I was that kind of shattered. So thank goodness JK Rowling's left us with words that I hold dear in my heart and I know I would remember whenever I miss Harry Potter...Because once a Potterhead, ALWAYS a Potterhead.
What do You think about Harry Potter Boxset (2007)?
I've resisted writing reviews for these books for a while now, because it sort of seems like a pointless effort. Everyone knows these books, and there doesn't seem to be anything more to say about them. But then I figured, why not add my two cents? So here we go:I am a member of what I'll call "the Harry Potter generation" - ie, I was a kid when these books first came out, and I've literally grown up with the series. My best friend in elementary school gave me Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for my twelfth birthday, and I was hooked immediately. The seventh book came out only a couple months after I had turned eighteen. Because of this, there was never more than a year or so difference between my age and the ages of the characters I was reading about. I'm only just starting to appreciate what a special experience this was. In light of this, I've decided to give myself a summer project (in addition to The List, which I continue to hack away at). My goal for this summer is to re-read the entire series, one book right after the other. It's been at least five years since I read the first three books, and I never went back to re-read the seventh book once I'd ripped through it in three days right after it came out. Writing reviews of the books as I read them strikes me as a pointless and overly time-consuming job, so I decided to try something else. In the tradition of my abridged Shakespeare reviews, I'll review the Harry Potter books by writing a single-sentence plot summary for each book. We'll see how it goes. (spoilers should be expected, obviously, but frankly if you haven't read these books by now you probably don't care that much about someone ruining the ending)-Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: Harry Potter skips off to wizard school, and millions of children read about this and are cruelly made aware of the soul-crushing mediocrity of the lameass real world they are forced to inhabit. -The Chamber of Secrets: Trouble starts its yearly brewing at Hogwarts, and we're expected to believe several increasingly improbable things - that three kids who aren't even old enough to get into a PG-13 movie solve a mystery that stumps Albus freaking Dumbledore, Hagrid is sixty-three, and the word "Mudblood" is somehow a more effective insult than "motherfucker." -The Prisoner of Azkaban: Harry finds out he has a cool living relative who doesn't hate him, and the universe responds by delivering yet another bitch slap to the face and fucks it all up, AGAIN. -The Goblet of Fire: Hogwarts hosts the conveniently-reinstated Junior Wizard Death Olympics, and the laws of the universe are once again suspended so Harry Potter can be awesome. -The Order of the Phoenix: ANGST.-The Half-Blood Prince: We break from the usual magical fiascos for some Gossip Girl-esque romantic drama, and Harry and Ginny decide to hook up - four years later, and I am still not okay with this. -The Deathly Hallows (which will get more than one sentence so I can discuss the infamous Epilogue): I'll paraphrase one of my friends, who said after finishing the book, "What the hell kind of crappy fan fic ending was that?" And she has a point. But dammit, this is one thing I just can't be cynic about. Screw you all; that boy deserved a happy ending.
—Madeline
Just because a book series is uber-popular does not mean that it is cliche. Harry Potter will endure as one of the greatest literary platforms in the history of the English language. Fifty years from now, a whole new generation will find it anew and it will be just as interesting then as it is now.It takes an incredible imagination to sustain a story line across seven books. Even more so, it takes incredible planning to have that story line worked out in book one even though it would take six more volumes to contain it. Many authors fail in the latter installments of a long serialized book franchise. They either run out of steam, wear out their characters or have a hard time creating plots that can be woven into existing narrative threads. Harry Potter shows some sign of this. In the middle books the climactic points start to follow the progression of the school year in an unnatural way.By the time the books get to the last to installments, however, the story line actually picks up steam rather than loses it. This is an outstanding piece of writing. By Book Seven, J.K. Rowling has shattered the innocence of youth and placed her characters at risk across the board. Major characters are killed off. The twists and turn of the plot that had been sustained over six previous books suddenly becomes clear as the book works its way to its final crescendo. Many very good authors could not have kept it together for so long.J.K. Rowling is the Dickens of her time. The movies only made her literary achievement all that more profound. It is safe to say, that in all likelihood, Harry Potter will be as enduring as Shakespeare.
—D.M. Kenyon
This is a review for the HP series as a whole, not this particular boxset.Overall, I loved the series. The biggest thing for me was the world Rowling created and all the imagination that went into it. Strip away the world and you've got a fairly good storyline/mystery and some good characters. But it is the fantasy world that elevates this series for me. I remember reading the first book and thinking, "Rowling presents a new invention on almost every page!" Imagine how long a list would be of all the imaginative elements she used in this series. Many things she created; others she borrowed or developed. Quidditch, womping willows, pensieves, Marauder's Maps, multiflavored beans, living paintings, howlers.... As for creatures, she's got most of the Monster Manual covered. All of this, for me, was the magic of this series.There's been a lot of talk about Rowling's writing ability. By making one little distinction, I think the answer is much clearer. As a prose writer, she is average or better. As a storyteller, she is excellent. I think her prose does a fine job. It makes the world and the characters vivid in the reader's mind. But Rowling's storytelling is above my own reproach. I can't cast a stone until I've written something that spawns millions of discussions and hundreds of commentaries and "What Will Happen Next?" books.Why was/is Harry Potter a phenomenon? First, these are excellent books. But this isn't the whole reason why the series was a phenomenon--there are other excellent books out there which get only a fraction of the amount of attention. I think one big reason is because it is a seven-book series. Where were all the midnight release parties for book 2? book 3? The momentum started to pick up when book 4 came out. Then it snowballed until book 7. If this was a three-book series it would have been big, but no phenomenon.Another reason for the phenomenon was its broad appeal--kids, teens, adults, fantasy-lovers and non fantasy-lovers. In contrast, the Wheel of Time series is also excellent and a long, momentum-building series, but its appeal is significantly narrower.Favorite of the series: The Goblet of Fire.
—Eric
