Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Review

    Harry Potter has lived with his awful Aunt, Uncle, and cousin ever since he was a little baby and his parents were murdered by an evil wizard named Voldemort. Harry does not know about his past, so he is shocked when he gets a letter to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. While he goes through his first year, he experiences magic for the first time, new friendships, and the darkness from his past that is trying to kill him once more.

    Keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion. This review is only my opinion, and you may have your own, different one. I would take into consideration what I say, but do not make a decision about the book solely based off of this review. Let's begin:

    I really enjoyed this read. I did the series a bit of an injustice by watching the movies before reading the books (I know, I know. I'm sorry). I saw the movies quite a while ago, and for some unknown reasons, never bothered to pick up the books. I tried my best to get the movies out of my head while reading and go into it blank. I was mostly successful in this, so hopefully it does not hinder my review much. I am pleased to say, though, that the movie did a very good job and stuck to the books fairly well. I will not discuss the movie from here on out because this is not a movie review.

    One thing I think Rowling did very well was develop the friendship between Harry, Ron, and Hermoine. They have such a great triad, and I believe that everyone can find themselves in at least one of the three. I, for example, relate a lot to Hermoine, which makes her very likeable to me. Speaking of Hermoine, I especially loved her growth into the friendship. I really appreciated that Rowling did not make the three of them best friends automatically because that is just not a reality- at least not most of the time. It makes their relationship seem more real that Hermoine took a bit of time to be incorporated into the group. There were a couple of techniques that I was also fond of in this development. For example, prior to becoming friends with the two boys, Hermoine was always referred to as Hermoine Granger (notice the last name is included). As she got closer to the boys, this happened less until she fully became their friend at which time only her first name was used. It depicts the level of formality decreasing and the fondness increasing like in a true friendship.

    All of the characters were very well developed. I either grew to hate or love all of the characters because of this, making me more invested in the books because I wanted to see what was going on in their lives. They also all had their own unique personality, which really goes to show the author's skill. I find that, sometimes, two characters in the same book are exact clones of each other except for physical traits and maybe one or two personality traits. This makes the book hard to read and says a lot about the author's creativity and character development skills. J.K. Rowling definitely does not have this issue.

    Of course, their is the obvious thing about this story that majority of people love- the magic. The book is full of it, and all scenes with magic are very fun to read and make the book more unique. The contrasts between muggles and magical people is shown in a very fun way also. For example, Ron's father being fascinated by items that seem very basic to us Muggles reading. The opposing powers of good and bad wizards/witches is really solidified by the characters and gives you a feel for how the world works. The descriptions scattered throughout the book are perfectly balanced and are very helpful in imagining the world.

    Honestly, it was hard to find flaws in this book. I could go with the classic flaw-but-not-a-flaw of it not being long enough, but Rowling even does good with that by making six more books, each longer than the last (at least I think), for me to enjoy. I would highly recommend this to anyone who has not read it despite its popularity and make sure to emphasize that it is not one of those book series that is over hyped- it's not. It is perfect for all ages and would maybe even attract people who do not normally read books of the same genre.

Rating: 5/5 stars

Author: J.K. Rowling

# of Pages: 309

Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Thriller, Mystery

Series: Harry Potter