Harry Potter Moment of the Week (173)

Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme created by Uncorked Thoughts and hosted by 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:
Which Character Would Be Your Study Partner?

Hermione. Without a doubt. We are both extremely driven when it comes to academics and don't settle for anything less than an A, lol. And yes, like her, I'd be more worried about getting expelled for being caught wandering Hogwarts after hours than being a late night snack for a certain three-headed dog. XD

Harry Potter Month: 20 Years of Harry Potter

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.

Wait—what?! It's already been twenty years since the release of the first Harry Potter book?! I guess that means I really am 40 because I was 20 back in 1997. XD

Ah, the summer of 1997. I was about to start my junior year of college at New York University and read textbooks on lovely subjects such as algorithms and the Assembly computer programming language. (In all seriousness, I did enjoy studying computer science—except for algorithms. I was completely lost in that class.) Being buried in schoolwork at the time, a boy wizard named Harry Potter was nowhere on my radar.

It would take another four years for me to finally take serious notice of this Harry Potter character, when a friend persuaded me to go see the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone with her. After being completely, totally, and utterly mesmerized by the film, at last I understood why Harry Potter had become so beloved and such a worldwide phenomenon.

Although I've officially been a Potterhead for about sixteen years, it's still hard to believe that much time has flown by. One of the most eye-opening realizations for me is that my cousins were in elementary school back when they started reading the books, and now one is a newly minted college graduate, one is a college senior, and one is a college freshman. Now I feel really old, LOL.

HP has given me some very happy memories over the past sixteen years; no worries—I'm not about to bore you more than one of Professor Binns's lectures by listing all of them. Here are just a few of the highlights:

• Reading the books for the first time
• Attending a midnight showing of Half-Blood Prince
• Playing the Lego HP games
• Connecting with other fans through Harry Potter Moment of the Week and Harry Potter Month. ♥
• Attempting to binge watch the movies with my cousins but never making it more than halfway through Prisoner of Azkaban. At least we ate lots of yummy snacks (and sometimes even full meals, hahaha!) during our attempts and had some awesome family time together.

What are some of your favorite HP-related memories?

Harry Potter Moment of the Week (172)

Harry Potter Moment of the Week is a meme created by Uncorked Thoughts and hosted by 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:
Would You Rather Face a Dragon or the Acromantula?

It's not even a contest—I'll take on the dragon EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Yes, I'd rather be barbecued or worse than face a disgusting, creepy, hairy, giant-ass spider. I'm cringing just thinking about Aragog. And then he had a whole family! *shudders* I love Hagrid, but not even he would be able to convince me that acromantulas are just seriously misunderstood creatures. XD

Book Loot (29)

Welcome to a special book hoarding edition of Book Loot, LOL. No, not really—I had a couple of pre-orders and just waited until they all came in to put a post together.

I've already read A Court of Wings and Ruin, and it was fantastic. I bought The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue after reading the first five chapters through Epic Reads' emails and becoming hooked, while the Hamilton-esque cover of Alex & Eliza totally reeled me in. There are also two MUST-HAVE sequels in the stack: Lord of Shadows and Our Dark Duet.

The Hodor mug in the photo a little further below was a birthday gift from my bosses, who know what a huge GoT fangirl I am, LOL. The Season 7 premiere is almost here—and someone needs to get an HBO subscription ASAP. XD It's been on my to-do list; the premiere date seemed so far away for so long, but the wait is just about over!

For Review:

The Sumage Solution by G.L. Carriger
The Apprentice Witch by James Nicol
Much thanks to Gail Carriger and Chicken House/Scholastic!

Bought:

Alex & Eliza by Melissa de la Cruz
The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
Our Dark Duet by Victoria Schwab
A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, & Robin Wasserman
Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare

Harry Potter Month: Melissa & Lee's Intro

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.

Hello, witches, wizards, and Muggles alike! Another Harry Potter Month is upon us! We thought we’d do a quick intro-ish post to start things off.

This is Melissa’s return to Harry Potter Month after finally being rid of college, while Lee is back for a third year. Lee has kindly offered to let Melissa claim the points for this joint post to motivate her into writing more posts. Melissa is definitely not opposed to bribery. XD

We both took the Sorting Hat quiz back when Pottermore first started and decided to get sorted again on the updated site before writing this post. So here are our results:

Melissa:
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw. (Thank goodness. There might’ve been an identity crisis if I got anything different.)
Ilvermony House: Horned Serpent. (Cool beans!)
Patronus: Salmon. (What?! A salmon! Out of all the animals out there, I get a salmon. Lee gets a majestic-looking bird and I get a generic looking fish. Typical.)
Wand: 10”, cypress, phoenix feather core, quite bendy. (I am quite pleased with my wand.)

Lee:
Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw
Ilvermony House: Thunderbird
Patronus: Goshawk
Wand: 11”, black walnut wood, unicorn hair core, unyielding flexibility

Yay, Ravenclaw! I just feel…at home in Ravenclaw House. I also love the bird theme I’ve got going on, LOL, including my Patronus. Unyielding wand flexibility doesn’t surprise me because I’m quite bad at adapting to change. XD

Please feel free to share your houses, patronuses, wands, and anything else HP in the comments! We’re looking forward to chatting about all things Potter with everyone all through July!