Disclaimer: This is an original post about my views on the Harry Potter series. The image is freely available on internet as a wallpaper.
The first time I had heard about the Harry Potter series was when I was in the eight standard. Though I cannot give a specific reason my first impression the series was not at all good. I practically hated the series. I think it irritated me to think that grown ups got hooked on a book which was about magic!!! This 'hatred' lasted through all these years till recent times.
Come August 2008, having been nagged and pestered on by a friend of mine called Nidhi (thank you Nidhi) I started reading the Harry Potter series. It took me just one book to start liking the series another two to start loving it and just one more book to become an ever-lasting fan.
Now you can hear even me saying things like "I wish I could just "Accio" the remote" or imitating the famous drawl with which Snape (Alan Rickman, who is incidentally my favourite character) says "obviously".
The most captivating part of the books is the narration ,well story too "obviously", but quite a few good stories have been destroyed because of bad narration. The ease with which J.K. Rowling guides the reader through the story is just too good. So when the young Harry is scared at Voldemort's rebirth you can smell his fear or when Snape kills Dumbeldore you wish you could just jump in the book and strangle him. You jump with joy every time Gryffindor wins the Quidditch cup and cry profusely when Sirius dies. And the Harry-Ron-Hermoine friendship is very real with all its fights and jealousy and of course love. That is the MAGIC of Rowling's narration.
The storyline is just too awesome. References to earlier events makes you flip back not only the pages of the book you are reading but also the previous books. Things that go unexplained are explained later in the book or as is the case most of the times in later books, not one tiny morsel of information goes unexplained.
One of the things that impressed me most about the series is the detailing of the "other" life. The spells have been well thought of and are meaningful. There is not a single spell called "Abada Cabadra". Every single detail from the food they eat and clothes they wear to the Ministry Of Magic to the dangerous beasts (trolls, hags, dragons though my favourite remain the blast-ended skrewts) have been worked out.
Well the moral of the story (in this case blog) is that I WAS WRONG. Harry Potter series is an excellent read. Worth every nail biting moment you spend reading and re-reading and re-reading it. Like every Harry Potter fan now even I wish that the wizarding world is real and some day I get to be a part of it.
