When I read this tidbit, I knew exactly where I was 10 years ago: driving around Vegas trying to find a Barnes and Noble to buy Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
I am not part of the target audience for Harry Potter. I'm not much of a fantasy person, but I do like science fiction. I've never read The Lord of the Kings and don't even remember if I saw the movies. I haven't watched or read Game of Thrones.The first Harry Potter was actually given to me by a boyfriend. He thought I would like it due to a conversation he had with another law student. The year was probably 2001. Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone sat in my room for months before I picked it up one night because I couldn't sleep. I read the entire book that night (it is a children's book). I bought the second, third, and fourth books of the series the very next day. So after furiously reading those four books, waiting for the 5th book was extraordinarily hard. I was a Harry Potter addict. J.K. Rowling weaves a meticulous story of magic, bravery, and the line between destiny and choice. The end of the fourth Harry Potter shows the return of the supreme evil into the wizarding world. This explains why, during a 2003 Vegas trip for my parents to watch Celine Dion, I ended up driving around Vegas suburbs trying to find the Barnes and Noble where I had reserved the Order of the Phoenix. I procured my copy and ended up reading most of the book that very night in our hotel room. To say I hate The Order of the Phoenix is probably an overstatement, but I believed it that very night 10 years ago. It remains my least favorite book of the Harry Potter series.
Why do I hate it? Well, everyone in The Order of the Phoenix is just depressing. Terrible, stupid people are in charge of the wizarding world in The Order of the Phoenix. Also my favorite character gets killed off. I actually can't think of a redeeming quality in The Order of the Phoenix. I even just googled the wiki page just to make sure. I haven't re-read it (even though I've re-read every other Harry Potter book at least 5X) because why would I subject myself to that?!?! Nevermind the fact I actually lent my copy to a friend and never bothered to get it back. My Harry Potter book collection is incomplete yet I kinda like it that way.
However, I almost bought The Order of Phoenix last weekend because I was buying the Divergent series (well, at least Divergent and Insurgent which are books 1 and 2). It seems a little weird to be hating the book so much after 10 years. Maybe I should re-read it and I needed to buy something to get free shipping from Amazon. In the end, I bought whiskey stones instead of The Order of the Phoenix. I guess I need the whiskey stones so I can drink whiskey while re-reading The Order of the Phoenix. At least this time, I'll be prepared.
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