For those of you who don't know me all that well (or at all, really) let me preface this by stating that I, Adrienne Dority, am a Reader. By that, I don't mean that I can read, and every once in awhile I pick up the latest big thing and read it. I don't mean that I own a few classics, and manged to read every piece of required text in high school and college.
I read the way most people watch movies, or television. I read anything and everything; each piece is a teacher, showing me new things about the world and myself. Some authors can transport you physically to the exact location they're describing, some authors can create a character so real you feel you've known them for years, and some authors can capture the emotion of a single moment so beautifully you believe you've lived it. And the best authors spin a story using all three threads, creating a world that becomes a part of your soul.
Here's where we get to J.K. Rowling, and Harry Potter.
I heard that sigh from here. I realize I am (quite obviously) not the first person to fall hopelessly in love with these books. We're talking about a franchise that has spawned literally billions of dollars in merchandise, hell, it even has it's very own theme park. The reason I bring this up now is because of her latest announcement: yes, world, Jo is writing a new book, and this time around, she writes for adults. When I finished the last HP book and dried my tears, I swore that the happiest day of my life (sorry imaginary future-husband/babies) would be the day she released another book. But now.................
It's hard for me to explain why I love the Harry Potter series so much. I still vividly remember getting the first book into my hands, the product of my hyperactive little brother being forced to check out a book from his school library, and then clutching the front of his shirt two days later and demanding he get the second. While I did have friends growing up, I was never the most popular or normal child, and in Ron, Harry, and Hermione I found true companions. There was never a transition period as I read; one moment I was an average American teenager, the next I was sprinting down the corridors beside them, breathless in my haste to avoid detection from Filch. I could smell the Halloween feast and feel the snowflakes on my lashes as I trudged to Hogsmeade. No story, no world, had ever felt so real to me, and I know that it was because of Jo's incredible skill that a generation returned to reading.
So here I sit, completely torn. Is this perhaps the greatest thing ever, my favorite author growing up as I have, providing me with new material as brilliant as her old, just more age-appropriate? Or was part of Jo's magic the innocence and simplicity of the wizarding world she created for kids?
Bottom Line: Please don't have this suck. I might die.
