the tourist said:
I used to be 100% anti-Harry Potter til I actually read one.
Axver's adventures with Harry Potter.
Around the time the second book was released: My father pointed it out to me at the Wellington Airport bookshop since he'd read it was gaining popularity. I took one look at the back cover, said "it's just a stupid children's book and that idea's been done before a million times" and put it back.
Sometime around the fourth book's release: Suddenly it was popular at my school and amongst my friends, so I figured I'd give it a chance. Read books 1-4. They all sucked.
Sometime around the fifth book's release: My friends were really looking forward to it. I wondered if I'd perhaps missed something, so I read the series
again. Read books 1-4 and the first 100 pages of book 5. They all still sucked. Never again will I trust my high school friends for book recommendations.
And now some people act like it's the pinnacle of literature. Come on, the characters are paper-thin, the basic idea is derivative and unoriginal to the extreme, and the plot/subplot confusion is rife.
Though what pisses me off is its obnoxious and thoroughly irritating online fandom. They should go collectively leap off a cliff.