An oldie but goodie?

I read "Evermore" by Alyson Noel. Meh. I mean, it was fine. Light, entertaining, screamed of themes popular in other books (romance, "what is he" intrigue, hottest guy in school wants outcast girl for inexplicable reasons) but decent light reading. I wished I'd picked it up earlier this summer... would have been a great early summer beach read. Definitely not a re-reader for me (which is, of course, my mark of a truly phenomenal book) but I'll likely dig into the sequel, "Blue Moon," some time when I'm bored or don't want to think too much.

In short: I didn't love it but it wasn't a complete waste of my time.

What I have found very interesting over the last couple of weeks has been listening to the iconic Jim Dale recite for me all the words of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."

I love books on CD. I find them a great way to stay up-to-date on books and make long car rides tolerable. Even when I'm just running errands, be-bopping between meetings and driving to and from work it astonishes me how quickly I go through a book on CD (and frankly how much time I spend in my car). The Capital Area District Library has a rockin' selection of YA fantasy books on CD, and though there's often a hearty wait for new releases, catching up on classics is a breeze.

So, I was listening to HP 1 -- the original -- and was surprised by a number of things:
1. It's wild how much the Harry Potter books have "grown up" as Harry has... I read HP 6 right before the release of the movie in July, so to now go back to HP 1, the contrast is striking. I remember reading interviews with JK Rowling saying the books were meant to be progressively more complex, dark and were meant to "grow" with the readers, but I think a bit of that is hooey and fact is she simply grew as a writer. I definitely prefer the complexity of the latter books!
2. It's wild how much scarier Voldie got! In book one, Quirrel actually calls him, "Lord Voldemort." I don't know why I noticed this or why it struck me so much, but seriously?! All the he-who stuff aside, in all the later books I'm fairly certain the Death Eaters only refer to him as The Dark Lord and not even Lucius Malfoy or Snape call him Lord Voldemort, do they? Or maybe it was just how casually he shows up on the back of P-p-p-rofessor Quirrel's head, but it's just like, "Hey-ooooo, heeeeere's VOLDEMORT!" as opposed to the sheer terror of him in HP 6, when even with Voldie as a kid the creepy factor is way high.
3. Jim Dale may have been lovely on "Pushing Daisies" and all-in-all I enjoyed him as a narrator, but he made Hermione sound like a twit. It hurt me on the inside. Nails... chalkboard... me hurting on the inside.

I read all the Harry Potter's in order when Book Seven (heretoforwardto always to be capitalized) came out, and it was an epic experience. Reverse order, though, not so much. Whether it was intentional or a product of circumstances, I say enjoy Harry in the order it was written and let your HP affection grow just as much as the writing does.