Why I’ve never read Harry Potter (and loved Narnia instead)

I’ve never read a single Harry Potter book. I know, blasphemous right? How can that be?

Growing up I was a hipster before it was cool to be a hipster. One of the reasons I’ve never read Harry Potter was because I thought it was too mainstream. I didn’t want to get into it just because everyone else was in to it. I had a strong sense of self and individuality at the tender age of 7.

Another reason why I never picked it up was because it just didn’t interest me. The fact that it centered around a boy was a major turn off for me. When I was young I gravitated towards books that were more female centric. I loved Little House in the Big Woods, the American Girl books, the Dear America books, etc. All of these were about girls. By the time I reached third grade, I was obsessed with Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, which coincidentally were about girls (and their brothers in Wendy’s case) who travel to a fantasy land.

In fifth grade I discovered the magic of Narnia. The movie was coming out in December and the Scholastic Book Order (that my elementary school would give out) had the books available (they even came with a movie poster). So I got The Magician’s Nephew and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I read TMN first and I absolutely loved it! I fell in love with the magic and the world. Then I read TLTWATW and I fell in love with it even more! I loved how everything that was mentioned in TMN came back into play. I knew where the White Witch came from, how the lamp post got there, why the wardrobe was magical, and who the professor was. Then I saw the movie adaptation and LOVED it! It perfectly captured everything about the book. After that I went to Barnes and Noble and bought the rest of the books with a Barnes and Noble gift card that I got for Christmas. I read them and loved them as well. One thing I loved about all the books were that there was always a good balance of male and female characters.

Fast forward to eighth grade, the Prince Caspian movie, and my friendship with this girl named Elizabeth. I had known Elizabeth the previous year but I didn’t start talking to her a lot until eighth grade. Second trimester she switched into my P.E. class and we started bonding over Narnia. She loved it just as much as me. We would spend pretty much every P.E. class obsessing over it. She had a crush on the guy who played Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and I had a crush on the guy who played Peter (William Moseley) and we both thought that the guy who played Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) was Spanish and were mad to find out that he was British. We were a match made in Narnia.

The next year, ninth grade, we made a new friend named Ana. And guess what? She liked the Narnia movies too! After meeting us she read the books and loved them. We would spend most of our time at school obsessing over Narnia and the boy we all had a crush on (his name was Brandon and he was the total package but that’s a story for another time). When sophomore year rolled around, we saw the Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie together. I remember my mom picked us up after school drove us to the theatre.

We’re still friends today, even though we don’t see each other as often as we would like. The memories we made obsessing over Narnia are some of my favorites.

To sum up, Narnia gave me so much in life, that it will always have that special place in my heart. I know many people have had that experience with Harry Potter, but that just never happened with me. I honestly don’t know if I will ever read Harry Potter.

Is there a popular book series you haven’t read? Let me know in the comments!