Book Review: Harry Potter

Books #55 & #57

‘After all this time?’ 
‘Always.’ — J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I debated whether I should review this properly or not at all. It’s a reread, after all, and it’s Harry Potter. Do you guys really need to know what I think? I decided to group both rereads Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into one review, and I’ll just talk about my experiences with Harry and how much I love the books. 

When I started reading Harry, the first three books were already published. I was nine years old. When Deathly Hallows came out, Harry and I were both 17. It was a lovely way to end a book affair.

So there I was, nine years old, in a bookstore, looking for a book to buy. That seems to be my default setting. I wandered around in Waterstone’s, and eventually I saw the Harry Potters stacked up. My mum said something about my cousin liking them, which put me off for a second, but I picked it up. I wasn’t sure I’d love them, so I picked the book that seemed most interesting to me, instead of picking the first. So I went home and started reading Chamber of Secrets. I quickly realised that I was going to the love them, and hurried out to the bookstore and bought the first one and started that. I rushed my way through it, because I wanted to pick up the second, and very soon after I got and finished The Prisoner of Azkaban. The wait for the fourth book was torturous. 

When, beginning with the fifth, they started releasing the books at midnight, I went to the bookstore at midnight to get my fix. For each of the last books - 5th, 6th and 7th - I was there, standing in line, waiting for Harry. For the 7th I was the first person in Bahrain to get the book. 

Have you ever had stuff confiscated off you at school? Most kids have, whether it was some firecrackers, or an iPod, or something of the sort. Every single time I got something confiscated off me it was Harry, the day after it came out. And of course, I’d be furious and I’d want to keep reading, so my mother would come into school, laughing and pretending that she was irritated, and get the confiscated book back off my teachers after assuring them it wouldn’t happen again.

Unlike what it did for many kids, Rowling’s books did not make me want to read for the first time. But they were a huge part of my life growing up. When my little brother was old enough, I began reading them to him before he went to sleep. We finished the first three books that way.

I still love them as much as I ever did, and during these rereads I could barely put the books down. When the last one came out in 2007, I was incredibly sad that there wouldn’t be another adventure for me to read. But I’ve come to realise that she wrapped things up perfectly, and Harry is always waiting for me to visit him.