cc’s Reviews > Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone > Status Update

This detention makes no sense: Traipsing through the forbidden forest in the middle of the night, splitting up, searching for an injured unicorn when only extremely evil creatures can/will harm a unicorn? What's the point of sticking to the path if the unicorn isn't guaranteed to do the same? What if they run into the spiders from book 2?

How had I never noticed that the Mirror of Erised is just the Mirror of "Desire,“ spelled backwards? I don't know whether to damn my previous inability to question the text or my newly acquired critical reading skills more. I'm also frustrated that I cannot seem to recall if we ever find out what Dumbledore sees in the Mirror.

Unfortunately, I've been reading a lot of reviews of other books (negative, of course) that are causing me to notice imperfections in JKR's art. Specifically, the lack of flow in this book. It seems to jump around a lot & I can see where JKR wanted THIS to happen so THAT could happen instead of allowing it to develop organically so that THAT happens because THIS happened.

I never caught it before how sad Harry's life is. You think of it as just frivolous cruelty at the hands of the Dursleys, but then you read about Petunia giving him an awful haircut & how he stayed up half the night fretting about school because his classmates all already make fun of his broken glasses & baggy Dudley hand-me-downs. I think my heart broke. Not sure how I'd never caught on to this before! :(