I have the same problem with mine re: Harry Potter. He asked me if it was more important for him to watch a few shows I rec'ed him or read HP and I was like "HARRY POTTER, OBVIOUSLY!"
"Okay it's really hard to come from an outsider's perspective because these books literally made up about 40% of my childhood, so I'm not saying you must read these now,
I'm saying it's okay if you don't, but know that we may never see eye to eye on certain things because I have a fantastic knowledge of beasts and where to find them and you don't."
Yeah, I can tell him what happens in the books, but I can't express the agony of being 13 and waiting a year for the next book in the series, or standing in line at midnight, or
Eh... on the other side of things, as someone who read his first Harry Potter at 22 years old, I can get what you guys are saying, but it was also a matter of upbringing, and personal interests so. Ymmv.
I don't go "OH MY GOD YOU'VE NEVER READ X??" or something, I just go "Okay we'll put that on the reading list and remind me to show you Star Wars before the newest one comes out?
I don't think they'd garner the same enjoyment out of it, but I could be wrong. I really liked the Mark Reads Harry Potter blog where a guy in his 30s read the series for the first time
And how he moved gradually from "Haha this black-and-white tale of kids' morality is silly and weird" to "Oh god help I'm crying over fictional characters what is wrong with me."
There was a line in another book I read recently, where a teenage character was saying how an older one doesn't treat her like a child. He corrected her by saying he does;
just to throw my two cents in here, the HP books didn't start coming out until I was in college and that's when I got into them and I DID enjoy them a lot at that age
(though I can understand not having that younger, school age excitement over HP... not quite the same. but for me and my generation, that was with other series anyway, so I kind of get it /shrug)
Yeah. To me, the HP books were always special because I was turning eleven just when Harry was, and we grew up together. Removed from that context, I'm glad it still holds up well to adult audiences
I was... 16ish when the first book came out. I was so hooked it wasn't even funny. I got a kick out of the fact that I was so close to the age that the main cast would be if you used the real world dates
Sadly I never got into HP. I was twenty. I can see how someone would like the books, I just compared them to too many books I read when I was younger. I like the HP fandom though.
It's enjoyable. I'd give it a try if you're ever interested, I had a good time and it seems like the older generations liked it fine enough. I don't know if that rabid obsessiveness will ever be rekindled,
I got a kick out of the fact that I was so close to the age that the main cast would be if you used the real world dates