Series: Harry Potter

Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Posted August 18, 2016 / Book Reviews / 8 Comments

I feel the need to start this review with some general observations about the play/script itself and how people have reacted to its release. I absolutely understand the mixed feelings and reviews on this one, as well as the reasons some people won’t be reading it at all. There are some things I want to cover because I too had some mixed feelings about this that I literally had JUST spoken about. My thoughts changed at the midnight release, when I started reading, and while I was reading. Let’s get some shit out of the way If you asked me 10 years ago how I would feel knowing an “eighth Harry Potter book” would come out at some point, I would have shit my pants. (No pun intended with the title of this section.) As a kid/young adult, there was LITERALLY nothing I could have wanted more from the world of fiction. When I was older and especially within the last two years, that excitement kind of dwindled. I think we all can genuinely agree that a Marauders prequel would be unreal and amazing. Most people – even those against Cursed Child – seem to agree with this. I was definitely cool with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them because the world expanded to other people and wouldn’t “ruin” the magic of the original series. How could it? Harry’s not even there. But, for some reason, Cursed Child has gotten mixed feelings and negative pre-release commentary from bloggers. Clearly everyone has a […]

Reread Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Posted December 18, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

I remember getting this one in the mail as a preorder… and reading it right away! My parents were reading them after me, so they would always bug me to finish right away. Of course, that was never a problem. I usually raced through these! Ugh, the feels again. This book and the previous totally slayed me the first time around. I mean, honestly. I couldn’t believe that she KILLED THEM BOTH. So cruel. (It was so hard to keep this information to myself the first time I read them too… I kept being like MOM PLEASE FINISH I NEED TO DISCUSS THIS WITH SOMEONE!) I also remembered that this is the one where Harry finally gets an idea of what it will actually take to kill Voldemort. The quest for horcruxes kicks off. Can my answer still just be: Harry Potter + reread = DUH. I mean, really, who do you think I am? I’m pretty surprised I didn’t reread these sooner honestly. Jim Dale’s narrator voice is totally bae. SAD AS USUAL. Ugh. I have to say, it feels weird to finally be at this part of the reread! Only one book left. Unfortunately I remember not loving the 7th book much until about halfway through. That period of time where they’re literally walking around and setting up camp was so boring. ANYWAYS BACK TO THIS BOOK. So there were actually lots of things I forgot about! I didn’t remember that he and Ginny started dating in this book […]

Reread Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Posted June 6, 2015 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments

I don’t remember if we preordered this one or if I went to the store and bought it. I can’t imagine that I waited to read it for any reason, so I have a feeling it was delivered on release day. I really can’t believe I was 13 when I first read this. I vividly remember sitting around the pool or on our back porch reading this during the summer vacation. UGH OBVIOUSLY I REMEMBER THE ENDING OF THIS. The first very very very sad death in the series. Ugh. Stop reading here if for some reason you haven’t read the series: I was so heartbroken when Sirius died. Harry finally had a family, and maybe even a chance to live with him (because finally the Ministry believed them about Voldemort’s return)… and it got plucked away. You cruel woman, JK Rowling. Otherwise I truthfully didn’t remember that much about this book, except for hating Umbridge and everything she did to the school. My answer stands: because HARRY POTTER! I didn’t think I was mentally ready to reread about Sirius though, so that wasn’t fun. This book is honestly the one that I wasn’t looking forward to rereading as much. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely loooove the creation of the Order and Dumbledore’s Army – but everything else (Umbridge, Sirius, etc.) depresses me. It’s hard to read a book with such a vicious antagonist (sometimes I think I hate her more than Voldemort). It goes without saying that I […]

Reread Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Posted May 15, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments

This is the first book I had to anxiously await reading! Since I finished the first three books before this one’s release, I had to wait and wait for it to come out. My parents were pretty good about letting me preorder the books (especially because they were addicted to them at this point, too!) and I remember being so damn excited for it to arrive. This book is huuuuge in size and I remember walking around everywhere with it in my hands, barely able to fit. I also loved the Triwizard Tournament aspect of this book. It was such a cool idea and kept the action dispersed throughout the book. I knew that this was kind of the “turning point” in the series, where Voldemort is officially back; the books get much darker from here on out. Duh, Harry Potter! I always wanted to reread this series. Beyond that, though, I was almost the most anxious to reread this one out of all of them. I knew that #3 and #4 were close favorites of mine, but I always said Prisoner of Azkaban was my favorite. I wanted to reread this one to see if my reigning favorite would remain, or if this one would take its place! Well, I’m pretty sure this one has officially become my favorite! It feels weird to say that, but I guess my tastes have changed. I just LOVED the whole tournament, the new characters, and the fact that this book is THE book […]

Reread Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Posted April 1, 2015 / Book Reviews / 3 Comments

If I remember correctly, the first three books were already published when I started the series in 1999. So, I got this one for Christmas (which was three months after it was published in the United States) and started reading it pretty much immediately after the second book. I remember that this one was my faaaavoriteeeee. Honestly, up until rereading, I couldn’t really explain WHY. It just had a different feel than the other books: probably because of the new characters that I immediately loved. The time-turner’s introduction was so cool too. I remember buying a version of the necklace when I saw it at Barnes & Noble one day too. I wore it to the rest of the movie premieres. 😉 My answer stands! I always knew I wanted to reread the series but just never found the time to do it. Rereading them through audio, as I’ve said before, has been such a great experience! It genuinely baffles me that the narrator can do all of the character’s voices SO SPOT-ON. Honestly though, I was especially looking forward to reading this book out of the seven! Because I knew it was my long-standing favorite (without ever rereading), I wanted to verify that it was still my favorite or see if that changed. Not a lot happens in this book until the very end, apparently. I kind of forgot that. Regardless I confirmed that this is definitely one of my favorites. I feel like I should just list the reasons […]

Reread Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Posted January 21, 2015 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Luckily I started reading the Harry Potter series when the first three books had been released already. There wasn’t a lot of wait time in between those ones. I started book one in 1999 over the summer and got the next two books for Christmas that year. I remember actually laying underneath my Christmas tree and starting to read Chamber of Secrets almost instantly. It’s funny because a lot of people generally say that this book is their least favorite of the books. I don’t remember having a least favorite! When Andi was reading the books (for the first time!) recently, I saw quite a few people telling her not to be discouraged by this book because the next one gets much better. It started coming back to me that this book was a little slower than the rest. Of course, it’s still amazing, but it’s definitely not as fast-paced. At times, it’s also less interesting than the rest. I’ve said before how I’m generally not a big rereader of books. (Okay, I just started rereading a few months ago for the first time ever.) This series is the ONE that I said I would reread someday. The Reread Challenge this year is definitely helping motivate me to achieve this goal. I know so many people out there who have read the whole series countless times in their life… I just decided to start now. Oh well. Eeeeek. My instant reaction was being mad that the audio copy of Prisoner of […]

Reread Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Posted January 8, 2015 / Book Reviews / 7 Comments

Let’s see. I started reading the series when book three was released, so that was back in 1999. I was eight years old. One summer, my friend was reading this book on our summer vacation (we were family friends that went to Cape Cod each summer together), and she started reading it out loud to us before bed. I remember being so fascinated by the series that I asked my mom for the books. I got this first book almost immediately after arriving home that summer. I only remember which year I started because I remember getting books two and three for Christmas that year, and book three had just been released. I remember being in love with it all. The whole world was just so amazing to me. When the movie came out a couple years later, it refreshed my memory on the whole plot of the book. I am really bad at remembering things that happen in books – hence the fact that I have to write all of my reviews within a few hours of finishing the books. I’ve pretty much always known I’ve wanted to reread this series at least a few times in my life. I am normally someone who does NOT reread books because there are so many out there I haven’t read before that I still want to read. I’ve always thought, why bother? BUT, Harry Potter was definitely a series that I wanted to reread. I knew it for a fact. The books […]