Ohhh, my stomach is squirming with guilt right now even contemplating this question – I feel like JK is going to appear at my shoulder any moment and start accusing me of being a horrible fan. But I have to be honest: I think it’s Chamber of Secrets. I never really look forward to reading Sorcerer’s Stone when I re-read the series because there’s so much background information given (I just want to start yelling, “Forget about Nick being nearly headless! What about Horcruxes?! Get going! Defeat Voldemort!”) and it’s tailored to a younger audience in many ways, but I still appreciate the fact that it is THE BEGINNING. Prisoner of Azkaban is the point at which things become a lot darker (hello, dementors) and far more adult. Unfortunately, I think that Secrets gets lost in the shuffle. I love it, really I do, but… for some reason it doesn’t send that tingle of anticipation down my spine when I open to the first page like all the others do. It isn’t nearly as complex as the later books, and I found the whole who’s-the-heir-of-Slytherin-it-couldn’t-possibly-be-Harry-or-maybe-it-is thing rather wearing after a while. Perhaps it’s because the trio are 12-year-olds, so they’re just old enough to think they’re far cleverer than adults (i.e., brewing Polyjuice Potion because they just know Malfoy’s behind everything) but yet they fall prey to their own naivety (i.e., just because Malfoy’s a git doesn’t mean that automatically makes him the heir of Slytherin) and annoying tendencies. Ugh, just writing this is making me second-guess my choice, but I think that’s it. I don’t have some epic reasoning behind it, so it’s going to be a short post – it’s just that Secrets is the one book that I feel like it’s necessary to get through in order to get to the even better stuff in the other ones.
…I’ll just go hide in a corner now until my guilt recedes enough for me to emerge into society again.
