4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Childish, but not for children., 4 Sep 2003
By A Customer
A friend recommended this book to me saying it was hilarious, so I read it. Overall it was disapointing. As someone who knows the books inside out I got all the jokes, but found a lot of them silly, such as "He Who Must Not Be Named" being "He Who Smells" in this. There are also a lot of jokes about bodily functions that I just find stupid. The overall storyline was quite good though. Though this book is childish, it's certainly not suitable for children. There are a lot of references to Barry's groupies and Ermine Cringer's sexual habits.
It's not all childish: there are some funny bits, in fact the funniest bits are probably not part of the story. In the beginning there are author's comments apologising in advance for the book, which are quite amusing and at the back there is a ready-printed letter of complaint where you just tick the boxes for what you want to complain about.
I'd just like to say that I am a big Harry fan, but I'm not one of those overprotective maniacs who can't see the funny side of anything. I like parodies. I'm all for parodies. I think there should be Harry Potter parodies, but come on! You've got to be able to do better than this!
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not the gods' gift to Man, 14 May 2002
By A Customer
I will start off by declaring a few things. Yes, I have read the Harry Potter books. Yes, I do like them. Yes, I will read the rest of them. But no, I am not a fanatic fan who thinks Harry Potter is as good as it gets. You will find me in the middle of things.
With that said, I will say I do not like this parody very much and I think I dislike it more whenever I think about it, and this is not caused by the fact that I am an obsessive Potter fan as I started off with saying. =) The book is very self-ironic which I think is a good thing (it often says things like “Nightmares can be extremely
instructive (especially in cheesy books like this one”). There are jokes in this book I found amusing, and there are several names I’m sure I would find more amusing if I knew what they were a parody of. I fear I haven’t paid enough attention when I read HP.
But Gerber seems to spend one hell of a time joking about sex and bodily sounds and smells. Which reminds me, this is NOT a children’s book. There are things in this book I do not find suitable for younger readers, heck, I wouldn’t even find them suitable for my parents. =) Anyway, some of these jokes can be entertaining, others I just shake my head at.
There is another thing I can’t quite figure out about this book. I don’t know if it takes itself seriously or not. This IS a parody, obviously, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s written badly on purpose. It IS written badly, let me emphasise that, and it gets stupid in several places, but I don’t know if Gerber intended to. Sometimes I get the feeling Gerber tried to write the book as a *real* book, but unfortunately he failed. It even drags on at times, and I absolutely loathe the ending; I find it utterly ridiculous. Far too mushy, especially for a parody, in my humble opinion anyway.
I do not exactly recommend this book. You can lead a happy life without even knowing this book existed, but I won’t tell you *not* to read it either. It’s not completely bad, even though I only gave it 2 stars and say several times I don’t like it. =) I will point out though, that if you’re a fanatic HP fan, then don’t get all upset. JK Rowling is treated very nicely in this book. She’s actually pictured as a very kind, helpful, and generous person, and also Barry is still the hero, despite his somewhat shady personality. He does, in some ways, save the day. This is a parody, not a book written to be mean.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Shamelessly stupid, shamefully amusing, 8 Dec 2006
This book, while resorting to less sophisticated humor quite often, is none the less very entertaining- the author's own "What on earth am I writing" type comments only add to the hilarity. If you like Harry Potter, and can see the funny in crude humors mixed with less so ones, you'll enjoy this book
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