Sunday, August 29, 2010

Harry, A History by Melissa Anelli Review

Title: Harry, A History: The True Story of A Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon
Author: Melissa Anelli
Genre: Non-fiction
Page Count: 330
Book Type: Library Paperback
Publisher: Pocket Books, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5495-0
Picture from Amazon
Summary from Goodreads: This personal and in-depth look at the dizzying pop-cultural phenomenon surrounding the Harry Potter series is written by the webmistress of the most popular and most trusted Harry Potter fan site on the Internet.

My Review: What can I say about the cover? It’s darling. Anything with Harry Potter’s glasses on it, I would love. It’s so perfect with the glasses teetering on top of two old fashioned books. I love the color as well. 
This book made me wish that I was more involved with the Harry Potter fandom from the beginning. It brought me back to that feeling of when I read the books for the first time. Pure and utter joy. Melissa is just as enthusiastic (probably more, considering she is the “webmistress” of the Leaky Cauldron) as I am about the series and everything it stands for. It makes me wish I had more friends locally who enjoy the series as much as I do. Although, one of my friends (Ashley, this is you...) quit her job so she could read Deathly Hallows straight through. That’s pretty dedicated. 
Melissa describes her experiences beautifully. The language and sentence structure that is present throughout the book made me really appreciate it. Clearly Melissa is a talented writer and journalist. Her words transported me to whatever event she was talking about and made me wish I was actually there. 
It still baffles my mind how parents could want these books banned from schools. It breaks my heart a little bit to imagine certain children not being able to experience the series. For this reason, I think I will be completing the Harry Potter reviews I have been putting off doing during banned books week. 
Over all, I would recommend this book 100 times over if you are an avid Harry Potter fan. Check out the website for the book, even though it hasn’t been updated in quite awhile. It’s interesting to go back through the posts anyway. 
Have you read this one? Which is your favorite non-fiction Harry Potter book? This one is my favorite.... so far.

3 comments:

  1. I am definitely going to have to read this! I am a huge HP fan so I will read anything and everything I can get my hands on - thanks for the great review!

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Tara

    I feel ya on the huge HP fan! How excited are you for Deathly Hallows?! I cannot wait. It will be here before we know it :) I would definitely suggest reading this one :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. glad to hear you liked this one. i have it in my tbr pile and got it because i love her podcast.

    ReplyDelete

Comment away, my friends. I love to chat with you guys. :)