Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

What readers think of Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone, plus links to write your own review.

Summary |  Excerpt |  Reviews |  Read-Alikes |  Genres & Themes |  Author Bio

Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. (Joanne) Rowling

Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone

1st Published in UK as Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone

by J.K. (Joanne) Rowling
  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • Readers' Rating (220):
  • First Published:
  • Sep 1, 1998, 309 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Sep 1999, 312 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Reviews

Page 28 of 39
There are currently 305 reader reviews for Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone
Order Reviews by:

Write your own review!

John

I did not want to read the book but i had to for school.
Bryan Baker

I HATE Harry Potter... Im just here because i have to do a report on her and i have to find stuff for my report... i just think harry potter should do something else than write books... that must be boring.
alexendre portawski

your book has to improve
Harry Walkden

Its boring. With wizards in it


I thought the book was pretty good. I liked the details but I didn't like vauldimore. I thought he was a jerk
Text
...

I don't think the book is very good because, well, the characters are boring. Everyone that is good has pratically the same qualities: kindness, friendship, etc. and the bad people are always the same. They are the same people, just with different names. Nothing really changes at all in the characters, aka character development, ahem. There is really no different plot, either: all the books have the same thing, the Voldemort and the stuff. The books are going to go on until someone finally has the guts to kill Voldemort. I mean, he meets up with him five times, and doesn't do anything? Help us...

Anyway, everyone is fantasising over nothing. I don't get why this book is so great. Rowling pratically copied someone's idea...that's not great, people. In my school some 2nd grader read all the HP books and got all these points for reading (AR, you read a book, depending on how many questions you get right, you get points), but is reading HP going to do you any good? Yeah, entertainment...but if you were reading HP and then decided "OH! I want to write something like this..." there's really no more imagination left.

SIGNING OFF!
JamesPotter's fan

yes, I think that the book that started it all was GREAT! please visit me at Hogwarts Online
David

Hello. My name is David Feldman and I have read all four books. When the fifth comes out I will read that one too. I hate them all. Witchcraft aside (I will leave that out as I disagree with that TYPE of concern. It is, I believe, simply an outlet for the sane public who lacks the eloquence to express their disgust with the series).

Firstly, let me explain something. I am neither a devout Christian nor a fanatic who hates all popular things out of jealousy. I am also not someone who hates things on principle. In fact, I am an enthusiastic reader and I have read virtually every classic that the current literary pool has to offer. Thus hear me out.

It is important to note at this point that the series is riddled with grammatical errors and that the plot lines (I hesitate to pluralize 'line' because the four book are really all the same - after approximately 2000 pages, he still lives during the summer in a cupboard like some kind of Cinderella, he still hates Malfoy, Voldemort, and Snape, and still loves Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid. He discovers something mythological – and thus unoriginal – every time, then risks getting in trouble to stop the ‘bad guys’, meets Voldemort – and doesn’t kill him – and then somehow emerges the hero) are always the same. I simply fail to comprehend how avid fans can claim that they ‘could not put it down’. On the contrary, I found them difficult to keep up!

In addition, several points of the books are in fact taken from other books, and others are outright plagiarized. For example, as we all know, Ms. Rowling was sued recently by one Nancy Stouffer, of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, who argues in her federal lawsuit that ideas for the Potter series were lifted from a book she wrote in 1984. The book’s main character contains a character whose name is Larry Potter, and the term ‘muggle’ is used in the book as well (which is entitled The Legend of Rah and the Muggles) to describe little people who care for orphans. The entire idea of Voldemort being killed but his spirit still lingering is a direct parallel to Sauron the deceiver in Tolkein’s stories.

However, perhaps the worst part about the series is that it is such literary filth that by allowing our children to read them, we are skewing their opinions on creativity and on literature and therefore we are eliminating all chances of this generation producing any great thinkers.

Something needs to be done to stop the series before it does any more damage, and I believe that the only possible way of doing that is to remove these books from the shelves – for good.

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: My Friends
    My Friends
    by Hisham Matar
    The title of Hisham Matar's My Friends takes on affectionate but mournful tones as its story unfolds...
  • Book Jacket: James
    James
    by Percival Everett
    The Oscar-nominated film American Fiction (2023) and the Percival Everett novel it was based on, ...
  • Book Jacket
    But the Girl
    by Jessica Zhan Mei Yu
    Jessica Zhan Mei Yu's But the Girl begins with the real-life disappearance of Malaysia Airlines ...
  • Book Jacket: Patriot
    Patriot
    by Alexei Navalny
    On the 17th of January, 2024, colleagues of Alexei Navalny posted a message to his Instagram account...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
The Berry Pickers
by Amanda Peters
A four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl disappears, leaving a mystery unsolved for fifty years.
Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

From the moment I picked your book up...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.