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David Mumpower: I'm transfixed by this conversation; I believe it exemplifies how personal each individual's response has been to the Harry Potter books. As an example, Edwin and I were bonding on Facebook earlier today over the fact that Harry Potter and Friday Night Lights ended on the same day this week. Then, I read this thread and see that he gives Goblet of Fire a lousy C- and suddenly I want to feed him to Nagini. I'm that invested in the subject matter.

Having read all of the books, all of them on the date of release save for the first two, here are my grades:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: A-
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: B-
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: A-
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: A+
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: D
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: A+
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: A+

I read the first two books in the span of a couple of days and very much enjoyed them. I had modest expectations since I had dismissed the stories as children's literature. In hindsight and with the benefit of re-reading them prior to the release of Deathly Hallows, I accept that those novels were rudimentary relative to what Rowling was capable of accomplishing as a writer. Prisoner of Azkaban and its brilliant creation, Sirius Black, identified that she had more talent than I had recognized on first blush.

Goblet of Fire was the work that announced to the world that the Harry Potter franchise was going to be special. The kids grew up, real danger was introduced and readers across the world were alerted to the fact that not everyone would make it to the end. Order of the Phoenix was an atrocious step back, an exercise in artistic indulgence wherein Potter's editors were no longer able to tell her no. The result was the excessive usage of Dolores Umbrage, a character that made me angry with Stephen King for the first time in my life. He wrote an entire article praising that character as a wonderful villain and I wanted to slap the taste out of his mouth for his transgression.

In the build-up to Half-Blood Prince, I braced myself that mayhap the Potter franchise would not finish well; I was that disillusioned by Order of the Phoenix. To my amazement, Half-Blood Prince was every bit the revelation that Goblet of Fire had been and while I lamented the ending, I understood what that was a requisite step in the maturation of the Hogwarts students, even Draco. Finally, Deathly Hallows was released and my wife and I raced to see who would finish first. This led to several hush moments when one of us got too far ahead of the other, leading to debates about what constitutes a spoiler (those fights are not just for the Internet!). I read all of the criticisms of the lackadaisical nature of the first half of the novel, but I never agreed with them. For me, the pacing of action/character development/action/character development was deeply fulfilling. And I loved the triumph achieved by Neville Longbottom, the man BOP always described as the Ralph Wiggum of Hogwarts.

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