User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-4183372-20110721201937

Harry Potter was a retreat for me. When I first started reading the books, I was about to be diagnosed with a serious mental syndrome. My life had been torn apart by the symptoms to the point where my parents and I could not even speak to each other. When someone gave me my first Harry Potter book, it was actually the one thing that kept my attention and let me run away from the scary world I had been forced into, due to genetics, misunderstandings, and drugs that had worse side affects sometimes than the symptoms they treated. With the inspiration of a little boy who had been in (what seemed like) the worst possible position, yet still made his life what he wanted - I realized that if he could do it, if I worked as hard as he had, there was hope for my recovery as well. In the process, I passed the books onto my mother and slowly, through our mutual affection for the series, our relationship began to be repaired and grew into a state where I could honestly call her my best friend. When I was dating my future husband, we found that my father was being transferred and there was no way I could avoid going across country with them. I managed to weasel my then boyfriend to read the series before I left (books 1-5 at the time) in two months, which is impressive since he's a slow reader. For the year that I was gone, we would talk constantly, arguing about the end that was to come and what would happen. In the end, it was the best thing ever. The books were what opened my now husband's eyes to the joy of reading and he has now extended out from Harry Potter. So anything that can get a grown man to enjoy books again after 20 years of not cracking a cover - well, it's the greatest series that has affected my life in so much ways. It's meant an escape, a relationship mender, and a mind-opening inspiration. So that is exactly what it's meant to me.