Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Embarking on my first read through of the entire Harry Potter series this year, mainly so I can understand what my youngest is talking about and to be able to answer quiz questions about wizards.

This is the only HP book I'd read before, back in 1999, and I wasn't enamoured enough with it then to get swept up in the hype. Not much has changed with this read through. At its heart this is a good story, with all the prerequisites for a well crafted novel: a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end, neatly packaged chapters with appropriately spaced cliffhangers, and JKR should be commended for how strictly she's managed to adhere to the good old Hero's Journey trope. However, conversely, the writing is overly simplistic, the pacing too measured, the reveals and resolutions often predictable, and the deus ex machina in the final chapter so heavy handed it cracked me up.

At the end of the day this is a children's book so I'm cutting it some slack and giving it three stars, but if I come across another scene that's directly lifted from LOTR I'll come back and take a star off, I swear.