1. The magic. It doesn’t matter how old you are, there is
something charming and delightful about the idea of magic. Rowling does it
complete justice – it is never overly simplistic, it is never too easy, and it
is always incredibly brilliant. I know some of you are refusing to read it
because magic isn’t real; that is utter nonsense. Clearly you have forgotten
that decades ago, most of our current technology would have been considered “magical,”
and there is still a lot in the world that can’t be explained. So if you
believe in any unproven scientific hypothesis, then by extension, you have to
believe in magic. You don’t really have an option.
2. It is a national bestseller ten times over. If you haven’t
read it yet, you are probably part of the 1% that hasn’t. Don’t be part of the
1%. Yes, I am shamelessly using peer pressure as an argument. Mainly because if
you read 50 Shades of Gray – “just to
see what all the hype was about” – then you can read Harry Potter.
3. Life is awful. Really awful sometimes. I can’t understand people
who only like reading books about reality: death, war, despair, lust, and
greed – and no happy endings. Take a break every once in awhile. The awfulness
will still be there, waiting, once you’ve finished the book. Besides, doesn’t
your brain EVER get tired of thinking? Go on a mental vacation into the world
of wizards and witches. It is so much cheaper than any staycation – just think
how jealous your friends will be when you say you spent a weekend at Hogwarts and
they only went to the zoo and the movie theater. I know you are an adult. I
know that hippogriffs don’t exist; there is no need to be snobby about it.
Hippogriffs can make your life better rather they are real or not.
4. Rowling is funny. Chuckling-to-yourself-out-loud-in-the-coffee-shop
kind of funny.
5. Surprising applicability. That’s right, you heard me. The
topics, events, and ideas in Harry Potter
are actually surprisingly applicable to our world (otherwise known as the wasteland
of cold, hard reality). If anyone has told you that these books are all about important
ideas such as love and friendship, they are correct, but those topics are not
quite as startlingly applicable. Rowling’s discussion of death and grief is
incredibly intense, accurate, insightful, and comforting. The parts of the
story that I find most powerful are those that deal with the awfulness of the
world – death, corruption, evil, selfishness. (Now hold on, you mutter, I
thought reading these books would help me escape from these awful truths.
Well, I was getting to that…) But through all of these difficult topics,
Rowling always manages to give us hope. Hope that great sacrifices can make a
difference, hope that death is not the end.
6. Rowling does an excellent job with character development,
and not just with the major characters. Anything else I say here will sound cliché
(“it’s like the characters are real – like they are your friends – like they
are 3D – like everyone else already used up all the words in the world to talk
about well-developed characters and they didn’t save any for me”). So I will
leave it at that.
7. World building. The details about the wizarding world are
perfect – the smaller the detail, the more delightful it is. From butterbeer to
quidditch, from the pamphlets released to the public about protecting your home
from Death Eaters to the completely amusing jumble of departments that make up
the Ministry of Magic, these glimpses into this alternate universe are one of
my favorite parts of reading these books.
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