<raises hand>

Not everybody's tastes are similar though eh?

P.S. Christine, I had an extra question I just added to your writing class article. Thought I'd let you know on here, 'cos its probably not one of the boards that's checked very often.

I intend to read it asap, so I don't accidentally hit any spoilers..

It just doesn't work for me, I've got no problem with other people reading it, and as far as plot goes it doesn't seem too bad.

I figured I'd wait a couple weeks and then have a proper discussion, but for now I was just curious how many other finatics there were out there.

dpartridge: There are a lot of reasons people choose not to read books and we are all entitled to our opinions. I read your comments as opinions, but it never hurts to say reiterate that something is your opinion. I did not personally find the books to be cliche and as to juvenille...yes and no, especially as the series wears on. They seem to grow up with the characters.

I finished it this morning.

I cannot get going today because I can't stop thinking about it. I promise not to leak anything. Let's just say that I had no idea that a new HP book could effect me to this extent-- even though I am a rabid HP fan. (I awoke each day telling my dear children how many days left until HBP was released! )

Now I have to bite my tongue and patiently read it aloud to my family each evening without dropping even the tiniest hints. It's taking a herculean effort to keep my lip buttoned!

*SIGH*

-Monolith-

I'm looking forward to being able to talk about it.

Abby, what did you read in book 2 that made you think of a potential plot twist? It could be a plot twist that comes earlier in the series. (For the sake of potential spoilers, don't say what you think the plot twist is, just tell us what you read.) I don't think you need to worry about spoiler warnings because Spaceman will probably forget what you say before he gets around to reading book 2.

I liked it better than 5 because Harry has stopped acting like a frustrated teenager (and I don't think that needs a spoiler warning). The frustrated teenager part was what made book 5 less enjoyable for me.

quote:

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<Looks around wondering if he's the only one who hasn't read any of the books>

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Now if you want to talk about really poor work, let's talk about Star Wars. I got up and walked out of the first movie when it came out so many years ago. I take my kids to them now and try to sleep through the movies. The kids are embarassed by me. I just grin and do my best to look feeble-minded. They move away and won't look at me until they run out of popcorn.

But her heroes are complex and fallible and very real and likeable, the pacing is excellent, and she drops enough hints to keep even the most analytical obsessive happily occupied. And I like her anti-bureaucratic political stance. She effectively portrays the values of love and courage without getting revoltingly moralistic and sappy.

Any time that I can just sit and enjoy my boys analyzing every last little detail of how to effectively 'swish and flick', I thank her.

I read the books for others more than for myself.

With regards to Star Wars, many of us SF fans were excited that finally there was a chance to see cinema whose technology could more realistically portray what we read. We felt that finally the technology had caught up to imagination. We felt that others would share our wonder in the science and the challenges of living in space.

And then Lucas made starfighters. And made them clumsy rehashes of World War II fighter planes. And made them bank against an atmosphere that wasn't there, and echo gunfire off the vast canyons of the Deathstar.

We were cheated, and so were you.

My dad is a compulsive "critical reader". Sometimes he seems to read more for the enjoyment he gets in finding an author's mistake, or guessing the ending halfway through, than just to take off with a good story.

An example that always comes to mind is OSC's Enders Game. I loved the book, especially the ending. Knowing my dad is a sci-fi buff, I gave it to him when I was done. By 1/3 of the way through he basically had the whole plot figured out. To me that would totally ruin the story experience.

For some reason she is able to look beyond it, but I am not.

Couldn't agree more about the adverbs. Her heros are rich and colorful, but I do not *entirely* agree about the 2-dimensional bad guys.

Here's the thing, and it is one of my favorite things about the series: Book 1 is written for 11-year-olds. Book 2, for 12, book 3, for 13, book four, for 14...

As each book grows up, as the characters grow up, and as the audience grows up, the characters begin to depen. In book one Voldemort is just theevil dark wizard. But that's how an 11-year-old would perceive him. I remember trying to explain to someone that age that sometimes someone could be good and bad at the same time. They didn't understand. Younger is hopeless. Older, they can begin to gleam something.

In fact, for all the "plot holes" thrown at the fact that Dumbledore did not tell Harry enough things, I frankly can understand (partially...until the 5th book) what he did. Harry might not have been a child, but he wasn't a man either and he wasn't ready to understand how the world works. He wasn't ready to understand how a man could not be an "evil dark wizard" and still be so cruel and throw people pell-mell into prison. (Book 4)

No, I am impressed with the ways that the chracters, especially the evil characters, are deepening as a growing adult's perceptions would. The fourth and fifth books did a fairly good job of beginning to show what was really behind the death eater's masks. I won't say anything about the sixth book here.

So 2-d characters? no. Not even the bad guys. Not even Delores Umbridge. Frankly, there are people lik eher in the world.

STAR WARS:

Mike, I agree with you. They suck. I didn't realize it fully until the prequels came out because I watched the originals as a child and everyone else said they were cool and I had to think so too and I read far more undercurrents of plot and romance into them than was actually there. But they are mediocre at best.

In fact, I'm sick of people going to movies for the special effects. We're cheapening the movie industry for not expecting more. Special effects caught up with plot, eh? Seems to me that spcial effects took over for it and I won't have it anymore. I did not see Episode 3 in the theatres. I don't go to a movie in the theatres unless it looks very good, and when people tell me "you have to see it on the big screen"I can only assume they mean that all it has are special effects, because plot shows up on my TV quite well, thank you.

That was something of a rant, wasn't it?

dee_boncci, I guess I'm more of a critical reader. I love to try to "second guess" the author. Along with that, my philosophy is that if the book is worth reading again, spoilers are not going to hurt you because the second time you read it, you know what happens anyway.

I get very impatient with how coy and secretive Lucas and Spielberg are about some of their movies because the money they make on those movies depends on people going back and seeing them over and over again. If knowing how it all turns out "spoils" the story, then why would anyone want to go see it again? There has to be more to the experience than just learning how it ends.

Of course, maybe people go back just to see the special effects over and over again. <shrug>

But I think some people reread a book not only because they want to re-experience the story and revisit the characters but because they may also want to see how the writer "did it," how the story grew and how things were set up for the reader so that the ending was satisfactory.

I may have to mull over the idea of reading the extended series - the fact that the story grows up as the characters grow up might make it worth while.

The one thing that has drawn me back to see each of the MOVIES is that I thought they did a spectacular job of matching the mental imagery I had created from Book One. I thought the set, costumes, and casting were spot-on.

As an adult, I haven't been able to just have fun anymore when I write. It's all so serious. Everything has to fit, be real, be perfect. It's been a long time since I just had fun with a story.

I don't read YA, as a rule. I tried recently, after I read Harry Potter, but much of it goes the opposite extreme -- it's just stupid. It talks down to its audience, can only be read on one level, and isn't any fun for an adult.

I thought, how weird? I like Harry Potter so much, and it's YA, so why not all this other stuff? And then it hit me -- balance.

The adult world is full of complexisities. I need not turn to fiction to find them, although I enjoy finding meaningful and complex stories that I can read again and again and find new stuff each time I do. I love layers, I love real characters. What I don't like is complexity for the sake of complexitiy -- difficulty for the sake of difficulty.

Harry Potter takes me back to a simpler time but without talking down to me and without being meaningless. I've read each book at least ten times (except the fifth and sixth). I don't find must new stuff now, but always for severeal rereads I have found stuff I missed the first time, new depths, but never is it all that complex -- it's still, at its heart, a simple pleasure I don't have to work to enjoy. I can always enjoy the story on that level.

Finished it last night. It took me back to the better part of the series (ie. not book 5, which I loathed). Lots of things to satisfy long time readers of the series.

I have to say that for me, the first four books had a "fairy tail" feel to them. They were much more light hearted, despite the dangers. I guess I'm in the minority of loving the fifth book for leaving the fairy tail behind and becoming a real fantasy story.

In fact, while I still have problems with book 5, I don't dislike it. I had to reread it to get to the point where I decided I liked it and understood what she was doing, but at first it was kind of a shock. Now, the problems I have with it are not the teenage angst that seemed out of control the first read and seemed to make a little more sense the second time through. Rather, for being the longest book to date it seemed to me that the least amount of actual plot happened. I thought that what the bad guys spend the year trying to acomplish was a bit silly.

I totally agree with Beth on the holes and the adverbs, and I've always wondered what the editor was thinking. But you know what the great thing about these books is? The genius of the imagination. She takes all this old English mythology and brings it out for the young people of today to grasp and live--mind you, she gives it her own unique bent. She didn't mean for all of it to be so popular--BTW can you imagine how stressful it must be for sooooo many people to have an opinion of your book. You're NEVER going to please everyone. And for some reason the negative is louder in your head than the positive.

Christine, I've been reading YA novels steadily for about two years now and I have to say I agree with you. But, I have found many jewels as well. My favorite book of all time is a YA novel that I read three years ago--and no it's not HP --It's by Lois Lowry, called "The Giver". An amazing and life-changing story. There are two others in the same series, "Gathering Blue" and "Messenger". Both are excellent--"Messenger" more so than "Gathering Blue". "Holes" is another fun one by Louis Sachar. The movie did NOT do it justice. beyond this I've found mostly mediocore literature. Too bad really. It's no wonder the kids don't want to read. If nothing else Harry Potter has spawned a whole new generation of readers.

I decided at the last minute I had to reread 4 and 5, so started last Thursday, and got them done by Sunday morning so I could start on 6. I'd had the same issues re teenage angst of book 5 (and I taught 8th grade at the time, so I had that perspective to bring), but felt better about it after rereading it. I did enjoy 6, and look forward to 7.

I had not read them until the first three were in paperback - got them shrink-wrapped from Avon! I went on bedrest during my twin pregnancy, and just sucked them down. I was impressed at how hard it was to put them down - she just impels you from chapter to chapter. Then I started writing and yes, those adverbs became irritating. But they did not distract from an engagingly-told story, or characters I could belive in and with whom I sympathized. The books definitely grow, and it was funny because I caught myself noticing the LACK of those adverbs in the dialogue tags, and just as I was mentioning it to my husband, she did it twice in a row! There is one she used twice that bugged me, but overall I felt the book was what I had hoped for, and we are all set for 7 in three years.

Though I did enjoy the book immensely.

I always read any book with what I call my "third eye". It's kind of my way of not throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I heard this guy once talking about rated "R" movies and how people always say well it's only rated "R" for violence or they only say the "F" word once. He compared this to a brownie with crap in it. Would you eat that, he'd asked.