And other pitfalls of growing up too fast.

I just finished book four in the Harry Potter series, and after plowing through 1400 or so pages in the past ten days, I have come to following conclusions.

1. There are things about J.K. Rowling’s writing that annoy me.

a. She overuses some descriptions of people’s behaviors.
b. Phonetic spelling of accents.
c. Villains revealing their nefarious plots just as they’re about to doom someone.

2. I can forgive these annoyances because of what she does well.

a. Wow, talk about creating a world with one’s writing. The sheer creativity of it can almost make me wonder if she ever had some magical assistance.
b. She moves plot along rather deftly.
c. Not a pistol unfired, a la Chekov. Impressive, considering the level of detail, number of characters and sheer volume of the volumes.
d. Holy crap, everyone, these are kids’ books.

3. It has been a pleasure, so far, getting completely lost in a magical world. It makes me wonder what else I’ve been missing. I decided I was done with kids’ books when I was nine. When I wanted something to read, I would go to the basement and dig my mom’s old paperbacks out of boxes. I’m not sure if she knows this or not (hi, mom). I didn’t go public with the grown up reading until later. So, I was a precocious reader and that’s fab, but I left myself a very small window in which to absorb the more interesting reads from – I guess it’s what the bookstores these days are calling the “independent reader” section.  It’s the reason I never read books like The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. It’s not that I wasn’t interested, it’s because by the time they came into my cultural awareness I was onto The Clan of the Cave Bear and Stephen King.
4. I would like to have a wand. And an owl.