I’ve just read Harry Potter, at 28. Is it as bad as the internet thinks?

The yes, the no, and the maybe

I was a bit too young to enjoy Harry Potter, as a young contemporary. I would see older kids wearing lipstick on their foreheads and shouting ‘avra kadavra!’ at each other, but it was largely a mystery until my friends dragged me to sporadically see the later films in my tweens. I didn’t understand them, if I’m honest. I felt like I was missing the plots and stakes because I’d never read the books. Who the hell was Tonks and why was she now a main character? Had she been mentioned before? The half blood what? Was I supposed to be crushed that this boy who had been on screen for seven minutes was dead? Why were Harry, Ron, and Hermione now running around camping and arguing? Shouldn’t they be in school? I was baffled, but I understood, even then, that I wasn’t having the same experience as the rest of the audience, because I’d never read the books. There was just lore I didn’t get. So what, I thought, finishing my strawberry laces and enjoying my sugar coma haze. It’s just a film about wizards. Amazingly, people take this franchise incredibly seriously. Adult people. So much so I’ve now revisited the books to work out what on earth I’m missing. And I’ll be honest; meh. Fine.

You’d think this book was written by the Hitler Youth from Twitter

It is a kid’s book that tried to grow up with its…