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.
