Book Talk - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling

Greetings fellow earthlings! It's me, Unicorn. I've been reading a lot throughout January and
have actually already read several of the books on my 2016 reading list! One of those books is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling!!! I finally started this series! I am so so SO late to this train, I know. But at least I can now proudly say that I have read one of the books! (I'm planning to read all of them, of course.)

I'm sure most of you have read this book, but if not, I'll give you a short summary. Harry Potter is an orphan who has spent most of his life living with his aunt and uncle who love their son Dudley more than anything else in the world. However, you guessed it, they couldn't dislike Harry more. He sleeps in the cupboard under their stairs, that's how little they value him (their son Dudley even has his own playroom.) However, on his 11th birthday, Harry learns that his parents were very famous wizards, and that the scar on his forehead came from surviving an attack from the famous He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Harry then goes to Hogwarts, school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he is very famous and known as The Boy Who Lived. But just as he's getting settled in, he learns about mysterious things that are happening around Hogwarts. He investigates and learns that great dangers threaten him and all the other students; Harry has no choice but to put himself in great danger to save others. (There are great summaries on the internet that you can read. Written by professional people who write summaries. You know. Not me.)

I loveloveloveloveLOVED this book! It was so amazing! I'm really glad I started reading this series, because I would have missed out on an amazing series if I hadn't began reading this. I'm definitely going to finish this series. I loved the whole world they were in and all the ideas. I really liked that there were different houses and they all had points, and how there was a sorting hat and everything. I also love Quidditch and Hogwarts overall! There were so many details and amazing ideas and it was just overall fantastic. The world-building was so well done! I loved all the many different aspects of the world (the moving pictures and everything are so cool) and it was overall just epic. I normally don't read fantasy books with wizards, dragons, magic, etc. But when I read this, I was pleasantly surprised. I loved the characters and their stories and everything! I'm so excited to continue reading the series (I'm actually nearly done the second one when I'm writing this blog post!)

Here comes the most dreaded part of every book talk: the things I didn't like. Of course there are some - every book has pros and cons. In this book, I think so much time was used to describe Hogwarts and what was happening in a broader timespan ('the winter came and the lake froze,' etc.) that there wasn't really much dialogue. I loved the characters so much, though, and I think more dialogue would have helped bring them to life a little more (not that that didn't happen.) I also think the book took quite a while to get to the actual adventure part. Most of it was describing Hogwarts and Harry's journey there. But that wasn't bad either, to be honest, because I really loved Hogwarts and liked learning about it and everything. It seems so fantastic! I want to go there!

I'm going to give this book 5 stars. It was honestly phenomenal, and one of the best books I've read in a very long time. This might even be tied with my all time favourite book, Divergent. I'm so incredibly excited to finish the second one!

I also recently re-watched the movie of this book, and was amazed by the likeness. Lots of lines were exact quotes from the books, which is pretty great! I really loved both the book and the movie, and I would definitely recommend it to people of all ages.

Leave a comment below of what you thought of this book, or if you're planning to read it! (Book recommendations are also always much appreciated!) Thanks for reading!

~Unicorn