I’m 48 and I love the books. I don’t read much fantasy, but I do like children’s books. I started reading the series just of Prisoner of Azkaban and have followed right along as each new book was released.
My kids were born in 1986 and 1987 – exactly the right ages to have grown with the series. However, neither of them ever read them as kids. My daughter (now 22 and a rising Senior in college) enjoyed the movies and she finally got around to reading the books last year. She loved them.
My son, now 23 and in the Navy, still hasn’t read them, nor seen the movies. I doubt he ever will. He loves to read (in fact, he reads for pleasure a good deal more than my daughter does), but he dislikes fantasy and just isn’t particularly interested in the subject matter.
No big, as far as I’m concerned – the world is full of books waiting to be read. Why waste time on stuff that doesn’t ring your bell?
I’ll start by saying that I am a lifelong fantasy and science fiction fan, and have on a few occasions even enjoyed books of those genres which were aimed at younger readers, even though I was an adult when I read them. But…
I was working in a bookstore when HP & The Philosopher’s Stone came out. It was released with two different covers, one clearly intended for kids, and one not. This caught my eye, so I grabbed one on a coffee break and started reading. The writing was, I thought, pretty terrible. I made it about 20 pages or so before giving up.
I don’t really remember the hype getting big until after the second novel. By the time of the third, it was a major publishing event. By that time, some of my (adult) friends and loads of kids I knew were right into it. I grabbed another copy (yea, free books!) off a shelf and tried again. Nope, still sucked.
Finally, in a last ditch effort to understand what the hell my friends were talking about, I listened to an abridged audio book read by none other than Stephen Fry. I love Stephen Fry, and find him almost invariably entertaining. I say ‘almost’ because, alas, even Mr. Fry couldn’t save the sad, two-dimensional cliche-fest that was Harry Potter.
Anyway, I fully understand that not everyone agrees that Rowling’s writing is bad. And even then, bad writing is not the final word for me. I enjoyed Dan Brown’s novels despite abysmal prose. But, despite my best efforts, I could never be a Harry Potter fan.
I’m a long-time reader of fantasy. I plowed through the first three because so many people told me that the writing got better, but I never saw any improvement. It was a chore to stay focused and avoid skimming entire pages, so I said thanks and gave them back to my friend. Too many good books out there I would rather read.
As for the movies, I’ve seen them all (with the same friend who loaned me the books). The only one that grabbed me was the third movie, which I think had everything to do with Alfonso Cuaron as a director. None of the others held my interest.
Nope. Not one. I’ve never seen one of the movies all the way through. People kept telling me to read them but I just never felt compelled to. I don’t read a lot of fantasy in general though (other than Terry Pratchett), and I actually don’t read a lot of fiction either.
In my case, however, I finally broke down and bought the first one in paperback. Then a couple of years later I bought the second one; got three chapters in; realized I didn’t remember anything about the first one; re-read it, THEN read the second book. Same thing happened for book three, at which point I gave up. When all the books come out in paperback I’ll buy and read the rest of them.
Wow. This really sort of surprises me. I read a fair a bit - 60-70 books a year, approx 50/50 f/nf. And while I read some brain candy, I generally won’t read what I consider to be bad writing. And I really didn’t think the first couple of HP books were horribly written. I guess it isn’t much of an endorsement to observe that other writers are much worse, but I thought the writing far better than - say - Dan Brown, or John grisham.
Not prose for the ages, sure. And by book 4 or so she surely needed the same ruthless editor Steven King so often needs. But a fun, escapist romp nevertheless, IMHO. Plus bonus points for writing something that could appeal across such a wide age range.
I felt the same way, that it was too juvenile (I even compared it to the same other series), after seeing the first movie. It was mainly the whole magic wand thing. Also, my impression of Harry Potter was that he doesn’t really do much of value, instead he’s just there while everyone else saves the day instead. I was afraid it would turn out to be like the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy where the main character turns out to just be a spectator to events. Man that series made me regret reading those 3 huge books, and I didn’t want to repeat that. I like a main character that grows and becomes more powerful over time.
I read the first 30 pages or so of a couple of them (sorry, but I cannot remember the titles) and wasn’t impressed enough to read more. The scenes of Harry and his Muggles family were too over the top for me. Alienation from families and kids dealing with shitty adults is a common theme in children’s/young adult literature from what I can tell (I started reading adult science fiction in the seventh grade), but other writers handle it so much better. Examples: *Oliver Twist *and *David Copperfield *by Charles Dickens, *Ice Crown *by Andre Norton. I never could understand why the magicians would let someone as important as Harry Potter be subjected to such nonsense.
I’ve heard Rowlings fans claim she is a talented writer, but the samples I read didn’t impress me that much with her skills. My idea of a great fantasy writer is Peter S. Beagle, who has a better command of simile and metaphor than at least 80 percent of modern poets.
Late 50s. I read the first book after I saw the movie on cable. The book seemed really sketchy compared to the movie. I haven’t read any of the other books. The movies aren’t great, but I do like them.
I freely confess I have high standards for what I read; Dan Brown gives me the heaves as well.
It’s also possible that the hype surrounding the books (though this was relatively early in the series, back when it was something random a friend of a friend recommended with curiously glowing enthusiasm rather than the commercial juggernaut it is now.) had me prepped for something special and finding something so aggressively lackluster struck me extra poorly.