The Ninja Reader

Zo, Harry Potter, we meet again...I have a complicated relationship with these books.On one hand, "The Philosopher's Stone" was the book that spiked my love for reading. Yes, I'd read Pippi Longstocking and I enjoyed the reading classes at school (I think I was 9 or 10 at the time), but this is the book that got me into the bookstore, so to speak. It was fangirlism at its worst - memorizing passages of the book, calculating the next installment's release date and price, calculating how much I would have to save for the fancy hardcover edition (no paperback for this reader).On the other, "The Goblet of Fire" was also the first book I really, really hated, and for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. In the span of two years, I went from complete love to complete hate towards anything in the franchize, going as far as to not pick up any of the other books that came after, or seeing a movie after No 3. But now that I am older and... slightly wiser, I decided that it's high time I gave the damned series a second chance. Maybe now, after reading a few hundred books, I can go back to this old crush and evaluate it for what it's worth. Hope springs eternal and all that...So, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone"... Well, I liked it?No, seriously, it was fine. A nice little children's book, with just the right pacing to hook younger kids to it. It was fine, really. In my years of hate, I looked back to this book wistfully, wondering why J.K. Rowling hadn't left it at that. I can see how I could have fallen head over heels for this book. But... But.There are also some obvious problems with the storytelling. Stuff like rushed scenes, telling, not showing, not to mention those are some of the most mature eleven year olds I have ever seen. Sheesh. Drako Malfoy, oddly enough, is the only student character that felt right. Not to mention the corny bond villain speech of the eeeeevil minion. Yes, I tried to kill you, Potter, and I also stole ze cookies. Now, sit still while I finish my eeeeevil plot.Muaha-ha-ha.All in all, it's a decent little book. So... how the hell did it get blown up into sevel freaking volumes?I don't get you people.