Having covered Twilight, that leaves one more young adult fantasy novel I know I have to cover–Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling.  Unlike Twilight, I can pretty unreservedly recommend the Harry Potter series.  Oh, I wouldn’t swear that they’re excellent writing, and the first few hundred pages of Book 5 does drag a bit.  But on the whole, Rowling has created a wonderful world and very enjoyable books.

If you are somehow not familiar with the premise of Harry Potter, they’re about a boy–Harry–who finds out on his eleventh birthday that he is actually a wizard.  He goes off to Hogwarts where he learns magic with his close friends Ron and Hermione, and does battle with the evil wizard Voldemort.  Voldemort killed Harry’s parents and, though defeated in the past, is always threatening to rise again.

There are several points that I find to be the great strengths of the series.  One is the complex world Rowling creates.  It’s detailed and plainly well-thought out.  The wizarding world has their own food, their own sports, a complex history, extensive legends…and without ever coming across like a bad historical fiction novel that’s trying to drum history lessons into you.  People (and by people I suppose I mean me) love the power of a book to take you to another world, and Rowling’s world is one that is easy to enter into, because it is rich and complete.

Second are Rowling’s plot twists.  I’ve noted elsewhere that I often can see twists coming, but I rarely predicted the twists in this series.  She is particularly good at disguising who the villain of the book is.  Voldemort is supported by numerous henchmen…but some are not nearly as obvious as others.  Despite unexpected turns, these are books that usually leave me saying “Oh, NOW I see what it all meant…” rather than feeling like I was tricked or misled.

I also love the way Rowling drops a side comment in book one that becomes pivotal in book three, or introduces a character in book two who becomes important in book six…she ties things together so well, and I enjoy spotting something important on a re-read that I didn’t even notice to begin with.

A few reservations on the series…I was never that happy with the romances that turn up.  There are solid friendships here, but the romance, though present in the later books, never felt all that satisfying.  And it’s not that I want characters to end up with different people than they eventually paired off with…but we didn’t get much in the way of romantic scenes for anyone.

I also was never able to feel much for the death scenes.  I know Rowling has said she’s cried while writing them, I know other readers have been deeply moved, and I respect that…but for me personally, I don’t feel a lot of pathos.  (There is one exception to that, and to avoid giving a spoiler, I’ll just say it was the one who died with “the ghost of his last laugh still etched upon his face.”)

Still, Harry Potter‘s strengths certainly outweigh what weaknesses there are.  And one thing the books do have in common with Twilight–I tended to read them for the first time in a few days.  And usually I’d read the last part of the book straight through in a couple of hours, because another strength of the books is extremely engaging climaxes.

Author’s site: http://www.jkrowling.com/