"A book that you didn't expect to like (but ended up loving)"

[kiki_eng]

glitteryv prompted me with that, and that book is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for me.

Someone gave it to me as a present, and I was so offended to have been given the best selling children's book. Had they thought through this gift at all? Seriously, did they just think, this is popular, kiki_eng likes to read, let's get her this children's book. Done.

They gave me the best selling children's book. I was so offended. I was a young adult, and what was this book doing anyway, making the protagonist a wizard, had they not read The Enchanted Forest Chronicles? Didn't they know wizards were evil? Apparently not.

I didn't read it. It sat on my shelf, and sat, and sat.

...and then I read it, and I loved it, completely against my will. ...and I read it again, and again. I read the other books.

All of my family did. We shared copies. It was a whole thing. I remember going into the kitchen late one night for a drink of water or something and someone had left a book on the counter for the night; I ended up hunched over the counter, reading for who knows how long, sucked in.

Eventually I read Harry Potter fanfiction, and I read a lot of it. There was this thing called Fiction Alley, and I made an account there, and I became "kiki-eng". I reread Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone again, and I took notes. I got a livejournal account and I wrote a lot of drabbles about Remus and Sirius - characters I met in a book series I hadn't wanted anything to do with.

I don't think I've ever been more wrong about how I'd react to a book.

Comments

[sylvaine]

Very similar to my experience. My father gave me the third book and I disdained it for weeks (which was a hell of a long time back then for a new book) because it was popular. And then... well. I actually read it. :)

[kiki_eng]

:) Yeah, I feel like there were a lot of us out there sort of begrudgingly reading the popular children's book and then going, welp, this is awesome.

[glitteryv]

Aww, what a delightful story!

I avoided the HP books until one random summer afternoon when I walked into a (now-closed) used bookstore. They had the first five books in paperback for $1 each. After a minute or two of consideration, I snagged all five thinking that it'd be interesting to check out this HP thing people were talking about.

Read them very fast and then waited for a couple of months before Book 6 came out.

For whatever reason, HP never pinged me as a fandom (even though it was definitely a mega fandom at that time. Especially because the movies had brought a lot of people into HP in a fannish way).

But I do have fond memories of reading the series (including when the final book came out and I spent a whole day reading it--even bringing it to work. It helped that my other three co-workers had brought their copies too and that one of them was our supervisor so no one got in trouble).

[kiki_eng]

(Going through the February comments backlog now.)

$1 each is such a great steal. :)

I got into HP entirely because it was a megafandom; I was looking for stuff to read and would try anything where I was familiar with the source material then, so I started reading and then I started shipping.

when the final book came out and I spent a whole day reading it--even bringing it to work. It helped that my other three co-workers had brought their copies too and that one of them was our supervisor so no one got in trouble
I wasn't in the work force that way when they were coming out, but it sounds like hockey here - when it's the Olympics and the finals.