Blog #1, Prompt #1: Not So Magical Me

What makes these books interesting, at least for me, is that they are considered in the genre of fantasy.  When I read Harry Potter, it feels real, or at least that's just my brain saying that it wants them to be real.  The way that Rowling uses immense detail to keep the reader's mind constantly thinking allows the reader to inadvertently become submerged in the world of Harry Potter so that it doesn't feel like words on a page anymore, much like how Harry gets pulled into Tom Riddle's diary, except not as literal.

Personally for me, I think it's the genre and plot line that pulls me in, but I have talked with others who simply say that with as much detail in the text that there is, their mind paints such a vivid picture that it feels to them like they aren't reading a book anymore.  I can see both of these options and more being possibilities for people.

When I was a kid, and even still now, I used reading as a getaway mechanism.  I needed an escape from my everyday life.  For me, Harry Potter was that escape.  Reading the first two books for the first time, I tried to throw myself into the story so that I was one of the characters (the sorting hat always put me in Slytherin, by the way).  This made reading the books a lot more fun and definitely a lot more interesting.  It got to the point that whenever I was done reading, or was forced to take a break so I could go eat dinner, I didn't want the magic to stop.  I would sit at the kitchen table and try magic spells on my food.  I waited and waited for my Hogwarts letter to come, but it never did.  Now, here I am, a college student all of these years later, and I'm still waiting for my letter.