I consider it my personal duty to read a hyped up book. I must do it. I must have my own opinion, no matter how decided the public are, no matter how slated it is by elitists. I usually side with elitists when it comes to books. Generally speaking, I much prefer to sit down with classics than to pick out anything from today’s literary world. Maybe it was drilled into me by reading classic after classic for my degree. Who knows?
Despite this, I have a weakness for hyped up books. Why? Blame it on Harry Potter. When I was sixteen (ooooh, seven years ago) I was mocking Harry Potter along with everyone else. Until I read it, that is. And here is my weakness. The reason why I picked up Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Like anything that is hyped up, people want to swoop in and belittle it, because it is popular. Harry Potter is popular, and to this very day I still come across the odd person that wants to insult it, criticise it and put it down. The pattern that emerges when this happens, however, is that the person in question has not picked up the damn books. I think to myself that they simply would not be saying these things if they actually made the effort to read them; they would, more than likely, become engrossed, like almost everybody else has in the world.
The Critical Cynic 