Snape: A Definitive Reading

Author: Lorrie Kim
Genre: Fantasy
Type: e-book
Source: Personal copy
Publisher: Story Spring Publishing
First Published: July 4, 2016
First Line: "The Harry Potter series may be named after The Boy Who Lived, but if you want to know the story, keep your eyes fixed on Snape."

Book Description from GoodReads: The Harry Potter series may be named after the Boy Who Lived, but if you want to know the story, keep your eyes fixed on Snape. This hook-nosed, greasy-haired, grumpy character is one of J.K. Rowling’s enduring gifts to English literature. He’s the archetypal ill-tempered teacher: acerbic, yet horribly, deliciously funny. Every time he opens his mouth, he delivers. When he’s in a scene, you can’t take your eyes off him. Snape is always the story.

My Rating: 3 stars

My Review: This book is a thorough dissection of the Harry Potter books with a focus on Severus Snape, one of the all-time best, most complicated and polarizing characters of modern literature.

Each chapter focuses on one of the seven books in the series. They begin with a detailed account of the book's plot and includes long quotes of the original text. As someone who has read the series four times, I felt that the rehash of each book went into too much depth and I ended up skimming much of it. As a Potterhead I knew all this! And, while some may say the plot summary is for HP newbie fans, I honestly think that this book will only be bought by the die-hard fans of Harry Potter.

While there were some good points made, many of the insights would be fairly obvious to a Potter fan. But the points that were based on pure speculation by the author, that weren't supported in Rowling's text, made me cringe a bit. She made too big of a leap in quite a few of her points. I had assumed I'd devour this book but admit to picking away at it for weeks.

Don't get me wrong, Kim makes some great points and I appreciate the amount of research that went into this book. And while I didn't agree with all of the author's points it is always nice to slip into the Potterverse again. 

Snape is a complex character who forced me to run the gamut of emotions during the seven HP books. He's complicated, heartbreaking, mysterious, devoted, hateful and obsessive. I liked how the author shows the conflicted nature of Snape and how his past formed who he became. Reading this book has reminded me that it's time to pull out my Potter set and re-read it this summer.