I read this last year as Nanowrimo prep and really enjoyed it. We love the Potter books at our house but I'm not what you'd call a Potterhead or anything. I've never read fan fiction or even gotten into fan art. I have writerly ambitions but absolutely no desire to be the next JK Rowling. So this was an interesting choice to read, no?

Well, I really like reading how-to-write books. I may never write anything readable but I sure like studying and researching how. I call this professional procrastination. Anyway, in some of those books -- especially older ones or ones written by men, I have a hard time getting into the examples they site from books I haven't read. I've read the Potter series myself, then read it to my kids, then listened to the audiobooks with my kids, then reread all the books again leading up to the last two movies, then read the entire series again recently while sick. So I'm pretty familiar with the story -- way more familiar than I am with say John Grisham's 2002 novel which was analyzed in another how-to-write book I was reading. Soooo reading a writer's analysis on the Potter series was actually super helpful; way more helpful really, than anything else I've read on the topic. And it was really fun to boot.

Not being one of the super fans who pored over all of Rowling's clues, it was kind of fun to read this guide and see and learn some stuff I didn't get reading them myself. I feel kind of sad actually, that I missed out on the original JK Rowling site with all those Easter Eggs.

I recommend this if you've read and enjoyed the Potter books, feel sort of writerly yourself, and want to learn a few things about how Rowling may have approached her craft.