Review - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone by J.K. Rowling

Genre: fantasy, middle grade
Pages: 332
Rating: 5/5
Goodreads

Summary from Goodreads
When a letter arrives for unhappy but ordinary Harry Potter, a decade-old secret is revealed to him that apparently he's the last to know. His parents were wizards, killed by a Dark Lord's curse when Harry was just a baby, and which he somehow survived. Leaving his unsympathetic aunt and uncle for Hogwarts, a wizarding school brimming with ghosts and enchantments, Harry stumbles upon a sinister mystery when he finds a three-headed dog guarding a room on the third floor. Then he hears of a missing stone with astonishing powers which could be valuable, dangerous - or both. An incredible adventure is about to begin!

My thoughts
I felt like starting to reread the Harry Potter series and when this beautiful edition arrived I started right away. I first read this book when I was quite a bit younger. I again really enjoyed it and this time around I noticed some things that I was not aware of at the time. Especially how Rowling's writing style is reminiscent of Roald Dahl's writing. I loved how ridiculous some of the descriptions of the Dursleys were.
It was wonderful to once again enter the magical world that Rowling created. It is so detailed and interesting and I think almost anyone would love to go to Hogwarts.
It had been a while since I had read the books, but I have seen the movies not too long ago. While reading I was reminded of how different some of the characters in the book are compared to the movies. Ron Weasley was in the movies never one of my favorites but I really like him in the book. He was funny and smarter than the movie made him seem. Hermione Granger went through a quite wonderful transformation in the book. From an annoying know-it-all she changes into a loyal friend. All the characters are so complex and I can't wait to continue rereading the series to again get to know them all a little better. What I liked about the characters is that they all had something interesting, but they were also not that extraordinary. They all had both good character traits and bad character traits. Harry himself is very brave, but he is also a little bit egoistic. In the wizard world Harry is quite famous, but I love how Rowling gave him a quite common name. Very often authors think their character needs an extremely exotic name that makes no sense at all when you realize their heritage, only to sound interesting.
Although the book is not extremely long Rowling manages to tell a great story while also introducing the magical world Harry enters.