I have a request to make...

Please don't talk about the new Harry Potter book.

OR...if you must talk about it...please don't do so with any details that spoil the story for anyone else.

OR....if you simply must discuss the details...please...for the love of all that's good and magical about losing yourself in a book....write "SPOILERS!!!" in your thread title, or in the post before skipping way down to actually type whatever it is that can't be left unsaid.

Seriously...not everyone is going to buy the book the first day it is released...and not everyone is going to sit down and read it completely in the first 36-48 hours. Personally...I DID buy the book right away. Had pre-ordered it and all that junk. But....the reading is super slow.

Why? Because when we first got into Harry Potter, my daughter was too young to read them. Both due to the reading level required and to some of the graphic/emotional maturity of the stories. But she really, really wanted to read it, and I was interested too. So....I bought the first book and read it out loud to her. And...we have done so with each consecutive book ever since. Yes...she's quite old enough to read it on her own now.....but it's a rare chance for us to share something special and memorable together....so....even up to the very last book....I'm reading it aloud. All the way through.

This takes time! It's sometimes challenging to schedule a block of time together for a reading session. And my voice typically gives out after awhile....I can't go more than four chapters at a sitting, at the very most. (Though experience has taught me that by the time we get to the climactic chapters at the end of the book I will read until I'm croaking! LOL)

When the #6 book came out, we went to the midnight party at the bookstore to get it. Could not wait to sit down and start reading it together!! Later, on the same day of release...within hours of it hitting the shelves, I was browsing a gaming forum I belonged to, and was reading a thread about some in-game technique or something....when some absolute ass blurts out in the middle of the thread, completely off topic, what the tragic twist at the end of book 6 was. Just one sentence.....that once read could never be unread.

I never let on to Petra that I knew anything particularly upsetting was going to happen. We read the book through together as usual. But that seriously tainted the experience for me...knowing what was coming.

So now....I'm avoiding reading ANYthing about Harry Potter. If I see the name mentioned, I turn away. LOL I won't even read magazine headlines that have HP or JK Rowling mentioned.

And I know I'm not the only HP fan who chooses to savor the story and linger over it, rather than consume it all in one big gulp. So please....please.....be considerate and careful with the spoilers.



I know...I know....I talk to much.... Thanks for bearing with me.