Tiara Talk: Harry Potter

If you're reading this it is because I have completed my first challenge of the year. My first reading challenge that is as if I've completed this so early in 2012 than it means I probably haven't had time to do anything else. What was this almighty, time-consuming challenge? The title says it all. I challenged myself to finally complete the Harry Potter series. I say complete because I have already read the first six many times, well, the first five anyway as the sixth isn't a favorite of mine. (In case you're wondering the third and the fifth are my favorite books.)

I know all of you Harry Potter Fanatics are shaking your heads at me and likely prepping your wands for some sort of tar and feather spell, but please, hold off all hexing/jinxing/cursing until the end of at least this paragraph. I have an excuse! I will name no names but a certain friend of mine revealed to me, shortly
after they had finished the seventh book and I the sixth, that a certain favorite character of mine would leave the land of the living in the final book. Crazy friend who does not know the rules of reading say what? Oh yeah. It kind of killed my will to read the book. Me, the girl who bought each book the second that the hardcover copies appeared in the store. I never waited in line for the midnight releases, though I know many who did, but I did always buy them the second I saw them.

Anyway, the knowledge of this death made me avoid reading the book. For a long time. Then I decided to do a little cheating and do something that I had never before done when reading a book. I skimmed the epilogue. Yes. You read that right. I skimmed the epilogue in the seventh book. I had no intentions of reading the final book if it was going to ruin Harry Potter for me as so many other books had been ruined by awful final books. What did I discover? That aside from the loss of this one favorite character I could handle it. That's when I decided I was going to do an epic reread and finish off the series.

But of course I put it off. I had schoolwork. I had all of these new books piling up. Then I started blogging and I of course couldn't reread the entire series as I had no intentions of reviewing them, I had to read books for the purpose of reviewing. Despite how fast I knew I read the first six books in the series I told myself time and time again there was just no way, they were humongous. It wasn't until late December of 2011 that I decided to make a personal challenge of it. I was ahead in reviews. I was out of school. My TBR pile wasn't going anywhere (aside from down if the avalanche it's been threatening me with ever comes to be).

So I made it a 2012 challenge. Just for myself. But as soon as I came up with the idea I couldn't resist starting. So I began my reread the last few days of December and finished the first two books before the ball dropped on New Years Eve. Then proceeded to read the next four by the fourth of January 2012. I was on a roll. With each page it brought back why I had loved the series, I could remember where I was and what I was thinking on my first read through despite having reread these first few books more times than I could possibly count.

And I'll willingly admit that I was crying so hard for the last few chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that it's a miracle I managed to finish the book. I could hardly see the words through the tears. 

I'm so glad I finally made myself finish this series. While I'm still not a total Harry Potter fanatic, I do love this series and will have to go back to Hogwarts someday for a visit. But for now...Farewell Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One, Harry Potter. It was a great ride.

So, since this is in fact Tiara TALK tell me...have you read the Harry Potter series? Why or why not? Did you enjoy it?