Two copies of Harry Potter #7 have been in this house for a full 24 hours and I have not read either one (though two people in the family have finished it). I’m trying to save it for my vacation. College Student tempted me yesterday afternoon. He was sitting out on the porch with one copy. The other copy was sitting unread…”Come on,” he said. “You know you want to.” I DID want to…and I did sit down and read a couple chapters. But in the end I decided I needed a refresher on what happened in HP#6 anyway, so that made it easier to put it down.
We weren’t going to go to the big release party at the bookstore Friday night. I took the kids to the midnight party two books ago and while it was fun to be part of the excitement, the crowds really got to me. I don’t like crowds. So I said never again. (There were people still waiting to buy their books at 3:00 a.m. that night…fortunately, the store had had a costume contest. College Student won in his category, which bumped us up to the front of the line. But it still made me crazy not being able to move in that store.)
Even though we had a book coming in the mail yesterday, Junior High Kid still wanted to go to the release party on Friday night (he doesn’t remember the crowds from several years ago the way I do!). College Student didn’t. I think he thought he was above all that. But we happened to be in the mall…and then there was something he wanted at Barnes & Noble, so he ran down there while the rest of us finished our shopping. When I called him to see if he was ready to leave, he said he’d run into some friends and he was going to stay until midnight. Which really ticked Junior High Kid off because he was the one who really wanted to go. It was only nine o’clock, so I said we could go down there for a while.
I was surprised College Student was home by 1:00 a.m. He had a friend who snagged #23 and the friend said he’d buy an extra copy for College Student. So they got through the line pretty quickly. But it sounds like the store got a lot more efficient at handling these crowds since book #5. The guy College Student got a ride home from had #435 (or something like that), and he paid for his book around 12:40. In fact, they decided to hang out in the store and read chapter 1 before coming home.
College Student and my husband said they liked the book, but that’s all they’re allowed to say about it for now..
