Hello, book club! I’m aiming to finish rereading all of the Harry Potter series by July 2nd (when I’m leaving for an Ireland/UK trip that includes being in London for the second part of the Deathly Hallows movie) and I’ve just read Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets again. It’s been awhile since I’ve reread them, and it was so great to just immerse myself in them again. It was kind of like meeting up with an old, beloved friend and spending hours reminiscing about old memories and good times gone by, tinged with the kind of sad nostalgia you get when you’re remembering happy times with people you’ve lost.

At first I was kind of wondering how to review something that so many people know already without spoiling it for anyone who hasn’t ever read the series, but then I was reading and was like “Wow, this is a really unimportant thing but it was totally awesome and got left out of the movies and I forgot about it, what’s up with THAT?” so:

You guys! Peeves (the poltergeist) is SO FUNNY and there’s a deathday party with a bunch of ghosts that would have been such a great movie scene that I’m totally sad in retrospect that they weren’t included in the films. Also, Harry is so clever in the first few books — it never really hit me before that the first two are essentially mystery books, with self-contained plots full of red herrings and plot twists and unexpected villains, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione are actually pretty good at the detective thing. Like, not Miss Marple good or anything, but who is? And it was easy to forget about Harry being smart when the later books have him filled with CAPSLOCK RAGE and being generally pretty oblivious to everything (but I totally understand, because I was also a capslock-loving emo teenager with unfortunate hair).

Anyway, the great thing about these two books is the worldbuilding. It’s like you’re right there in that world, going damn, yeah, let’s go to Diagon Alley for our schoolbooks! If you’ve never read the series, dude, do so! And if you’ve tried them and they’re not you’re thing, I actually do totally understand (at the risk of being sacrilegious, I really do think J.K. Rowling could have used a better editor, particularly on Philosopher’s Stone), but I hope you’ve tried (and liked!) the movies, because otherwise you are missing out on Hermione Granger being a bamf, and that is sad. :(

Next up is Prisoner of Azkaban, which is my favourite in the series (and my least favourite of the movies), and I am definitely psyched. And also psyched for this book club!

P.S. Actual stuff I’m supposed to include but nearly forgot: I read the Canadian edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, as well as Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (and not “Chamber of Secretion,” which I nearly wrote, and oh god that is something I don’t want to think about), both by J.K. Rowling. I’m not sure how long PS is, because I put my copy down when I finished and right now my bedroom looks like an episode of Hoarders, but CoS is 251 pages. My favourite part of PS is when Hagrid shows up to whisk Harry away, and in CoS it’s when a magical car has gone partially feral but still shows up to rescue Ron and Harry. Least favourite part of both: oh my god how did I reread these books so many times without realizing that the Dursleys are actualfax abusive? Like, CoS has them locking Harry in his bedroom with bars on the windows and underfeeding him and only letting him go to the bathroom twice a day, THAT IS NOT OKAY oh my god. D: Feelings: ALL OF THEM, this series gives me so many feelings, and I am probably just going to ramble about them EVEN MORE during my epic reread, so, uh, sorry about that. Also, hi @internrachel and @julia1!