Introduction
I was late to the game when it came to Harry Potter. I didn’t read any of the books until early high school. In one sense, I’m disappointed I missed out on the chance to read the books as they came out and get tickets to see the highly anticipated films as they premiered on the big screen. But in the other sense, I’m glad I waited because I feel like I have gotten to appreciate the series – the story, the characters, the worldbuilding – so much more. The reason I say that is this: I’ve reread the beloved series three times now (the last being right before Christmas 2021), and I enjoyed it the most by far this last time, as a young woman, wife, and mother in my 20s.
It may not be necessary to write any semblance of a summary because I can’t think of many people who don’t know the basic premise. Harry Potter is a magical (literally and figuratively) adventure and saga spanning seven books (4,224 pages!) also adapted into eight films (a combined 19 hours of screen time!). We meet the titular character Harry and follow his seven school years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as he learns wizardry alongside his best friends Ron and Hermione. All the while, a dark evil threatens to return.
There are so many wonderful things about this book series. I rewrote this review several times trying to keep it concise for a one-blog-post-review, and it just wasn’t working. So, we’re going to break our mold a little bit. Given the vastness of this series, we’re going to be doing a two-part review. I’m going to try to break it down in the most orderly way I can, but that way I can provide the detail I want without each review being absurdly long. So, please make sure you come back for part 2 on Thursday!
Part 1: Worldbuilding & Plot
J.K. Rowling’s worldbuilding is unparalleled. She expertly weaves magic into the non-magic (“Muggle”) world. She demonstrates such a thorough understanding of the world she’s created and boasts a spectacular level of consistency throughout the books. Her magic has a logic to it that holds up under scrutiny. Her creativity and attention to detail is truly astounding.
The story is unique in many ways. Yes, it has the good hero, the bad guy, the sidekicks, et cetera. But it is really the first of its kind in other ways. The spells (Wingardium Leviosa!), the magical creatures (red caps) and plants (bubotuber), the types of magical objects (howlers), et cetera. They are all distinctive to her book series.
Referring back to the consistency, I love how Rowling circles back to certain topics and themes throughout the books. For example, she follows a similar pattern in each book so they always feel familiar despite each novel having many unique plots and details (each book is a year at Hogwarts and begins in August and ends at the end of term). Both big and small, the recurring details simply strengthen the story and the world Rowling developed.
Her ability to write complicated magical concepts, objects, and more is splendid. She is able to write in a way that we can read them, understand, and picture them perfectly. Horcruxes – her own brilliant invention – are a piece of unreal, complicated magic that she explains well enough that her audience gets it. Similarly, many of her magical creatures – pygmy puffs, blast-ended skrewts, threstrals, and the like – are her creation, and she describes them so the reader pictures them vividly. Rowling’s imagination – and ability to convey it to her readership – is something else.
Her overarching plot of Harry vs. Voldemort is so complex and yet so thorough. She really thought of just about everything one could ask or wonder about in the writing of it. Every time I read the series, I learn something new or connect something that I hadn’t before. I call that a mark of seriously good storytelling!
Jessica
Copyright J.K. Rowling and Arthur A. Levine Books. Image from Amazon.com.
2 thoughts on “HARRY POTTER (Part 1) by J.K. Rowling”