Harry Potter Month: My Introduction to HP

Harry Potter Month is hosted by Faith at Geeky Zoo Girl and Micheline at Lunar Rainbows Reviews. This awesome event runs all through July, and you can find more information about it here.

I'm a tad late kicking off Harry Potter month here at Rally the Readers, but my tardiness has actually worked out because it parallels my introduction to the world of HP. The fandom had been in full swing before I realized that HP was like, the greatest story in the history of ever.

Back in 2001, I was two years out of college and fumbling to rediscover the love of reading I knew before high school. I would read a book here and there, but I was still fairly far from making reading the necessary daily activity it is today.

So fourteen years ago, I was aware of the Harry Potter books and their popularity, but I didn't really have much interest in checking them out further. I thought the books were for kids, and I was already struggling to read "grown up" literature with something resembling regularity.

And then the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone hit theaters. My best friend, who'd read the books, suggested that we go see the movie. Curious to find out what all the buzz was about at last, I agreed. Nothing—NOTHING—could have prepared my brain for the extent to which it was about to be BLOWN. AWAY.

I don't know if a movie has ever held me so transfixed as Sorcerer's Stone did. Obviously, I knew zip about HP going in, so every new discovery that young Mr. Potter made about the wizarding world left me in absolute, mouth-permanently-fixed-in-open-position awe. Diagon Alley! Platform 9 3/4! The Hogwarts Express! Hogwarts! HOGWARTS! I distinctly remember being totally amazed by the moving portraits at Hogwarts and telling my mom all about them later, like I was 5 years old again, lol.

By the time my friend and I exited the theater, I was desperate to get my hands on the books. A sweet hardcover box set of the first four novels was available at the time, no doubt to coincide with the movie release, and once I got my box set, I didn't know anything or anyone until I'd read them straight through. Seeing the Sorcerer's Stone movie before reading the book did not spoil the reading experience AT ALL; quite the opposite—I was practically giddy reliving events in the book, especially since it was going to be months before I could rewatch the movie on DVD. XD

Thinking back to my initiation into all things HP evokes some truly happy memories, as I'm sure it does for many of us. Please feel free to share yours in the comments! :)

Harry Potter Moment of the Week (89)

Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme hosted by Uncorked Thoughts and Lunar Rainbows Reviews. The aim of this meme is to share with fellow bloggers a character, spell, chapter, object or quote from the books/films/J. K. Rowling herself or anything Potter related! A list of upcoming topics can be found here.

This week's topic is:
If You Could Change One Thing in Book One, What Would It Be?

If I had the power to change anything that happened in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, I would change nothing. There are so many details in the first book that build the story and plot up to be what it is that I'd be too scared to change anything in fear of messing up the outcome of the story. The ending of the series is pretty much golden and I wouldn't want one of my small changes to be the factor that leads to a Voldemort happy ending lol. I shall not mess with the forces of J. K. Rowling.

June 2015 Recap

And so the first half of 2015 is officially on the books. I hope everyone's been having an awesome reading year so far! I didn't get a whole lot of reading done in June, but I really enjoyed the two books that I did read. The Melissa also returned to us in June and is currently obsessing over Rick Yancey's Monstrumologist series, which she hopes to have reviewed soon. :) And GoT wrapped up its fifth season, the finale of which still stabs at my heart like Valyrian steel whenever I think about it. :(

Reviews Posted:

• The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson
• Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld
• Half Wild by Sally Green

Featured Posts:

• Return of The Melissa
• 2015 Mid-Year Rewind

Discussing Game of Thrones Posts:

• Hardhome
• The Dance of Dragons
• Mother's Mercy & Final Thoughts on Season 5

2015 Mid-Year Rewind

I say this in every monthly recap post, but time really does speed up the older you get, or so it seems to me. 2015 is zipping by especially fast, and I'm in serious disbelief (and probably some denial, lol) that we're already halfway through ANOTHER YEAR.

Before starting this post I took a quick look at the goals I set for myself in January. I was happy to discover that I accomplished one—a reread of Maria V. Snyder's Study series—and have been diligently working on another—reading books that have been sitting on my shelves for far too long.

This item wasn't listed as a goal, and I can't believe I forgot to include it as one, but I'm really proud of completing the Game of Thrones episode recaps. The show premiered before I started blogging, and so I didn't begin recapping until Season 3. Not having the first two seasons in the archive always bugged me, and I was determined to remedy that before Season 5 got underway. Revisiting the first two seasons brought on some major nostalgia, especially when you realize just how many characters have left us since Episode 1!

I had hoped to be able to say that I'm on track with my 2015 Goodreads Reading Challenge, but I am not. Normally I would be incredibly annoyed by this, but I've been in a general life slump lately, and I need to stop beating myself up over things that I sometimes can't control. The spirit has been very willing to read, but the body cannot usually stay awake long enough to read for an extended period of time. So both body and spirit must utilize whatever time we can and savor every precious second of it.

If I had to pick my favorite reads from the first half of the year, I'd go with A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld, Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate and Finishing School series, Half Wild by Sally Green, and The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson. ACOTAR left me with a pretty severe book hangover, and I may recover just in time to be emotionally wrecked by another Maas book, Queen of Shadows, later this year.

I'm still attempting to cope with the fact that Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven King, the conclusion to The Raven Cycle, has been pushed back to early 2016, and thus I will not be naming it my favorite book of 2015. So the field for the top spot is wide open, and I hope to come across some additional contenders over the next six months. My plans are to keep chipping away at what's on my shelves, as well as to keep chipping away at my Goodreads goal. I'll do my best to meet it, but without pressuring myself unnecessarily like I have in the past.

Are you working towards any particular bookish goals this year, and how are you doing with them?

Fandom Mashups (8)

Fandom Mashups is a feature hosted by Lunar Rainbows Reviews. There's a different scenario each week, and you choose a "dream team" of five characters from five different fandoms whom you think are best suited for the situation.

This week's topic is:
In your adventuring, you've encountered a dragon :O but you have no clue how to figure out if it's a friendly dragon or a human barbecue. Who do you take with you to investigate?

1. Charlie Weasley (Harry Potter): Charlie works with dragons for a living, so his expertise could literally be a total lifesaver.
2. Eragon (Inheritance Cycle): Eragon has a special bond with dragons that might come in handy here.
3. Seraphina Dombegh (Seraphina): Not only is Seraphina also extremely knowledgeable about dragons, but she's also an all-around awesome character who would be an absolute asset to this team.
4. Hiccup (How to Train Your Dragon): Hiccup has learned a lot from hanging out with his dragon buddy Toothless, so he should be pretty helpful in determining whether the dragon in question is friend or foe.
5. Daenerys Targaryen (A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones): She isn't called the Mother of Dragons (one of her many, many titles, lol) for nothing. This lady is a mom to not one but THREE dragons, so if anyone can sort this out, it's Daenerys.