Reviews

The Psychology of Harry Potter: An Unauthorized Examination of the Boy Who Lived by Neil Mulholland

hlford22's review

funny hopeful informative lighthearted reflective medium-paced

3.75

fandom4ever's review

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

The first six essays in this book were excellent; they really delved into topics in the Harry Potter universe that had always been questions for me. For example, they make you take a closer look at the fact that wizards coming from wizarding families are far less likely to question where magic comes from and to experiment with what it can do than those who come from Muggle homes, who seem to create new spells, potions, and the like far more often. There was also an essay on how sorting into Houses really sets the students against each other right from the start and there really is no opportunity for them to branch out and make friends from other Houses. They then give examples on how Hogwarts can change this. After reading those first essays, I was excited to see what the rest of the book had to offer, but it fell flat. The last parts of the book just weren’t any good. Rather than examining things from the Harry Potter series through a psychological lens, it was more like the authors wanted to discuss a particular psychological topic and tried to throw in a paragraph about Harry Potter to make it fit in this book. Overall, it’s not something you need to rush out and read but if you can borrow it, the ones listed below are where it’s at.

BEST
1. What Do Students Learn from Hogwarts Classes?
2. Harry’s Curiosity
3. Intergroup Conflict in the World of Harry Potter
4. “Have You Got What It Takes to Train Security Trolls?”
5. Hogwarts Academy
6. Attachment Styles at Hogwarts

OKAY
18. Evolution, Development, and the Magic of Harry Potter
19. Using Psychological Treatment with Harry
21. Resisting Social Influence
22. Harry Potter and the Magic of Transformation 

mcerrin's review

3.0

Ehh I really wanted this to not be so boring. I understand each of these Psychology Of books are unauthorized by different experts and edited by different people but this one fell short on the interest level. Maybe because this is my field, I just felt like I was reading an old textbook nothing new or interested I couldn't already deduce myself. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Dexter topics of this book are much more interesting and fun to read.

northernfleabag's review

3.0

I found this more of an 'entertaining' read than serious one, and like most books I found essays that I enjoyed (as a Harry Potter fan, my A Level psychology only went so far - although the psychology isn't too deep that non-psychology savvy readers can still follow) and some that I didn't.

bamahnken's review

1.0

I feel I gave The Psychology of Harry Potter a solid try. I got to page 60 (after a week and a half of trying to read it) and I couldn't take it anymore. Because I didn't finish I won't give this only one star, but this book is seriously a bore. I thought the topics the Psychologists were going to delve into would be interesting but instead I was reading about how career counseling in Hogwarts isn't effective especially for muggle-born students. Yes, that's really an entire essay topic. I skimmed through to see if any topics caught my eye but I'm either fed up or this book really sucks because I've decided to not continue.

This book sucked the magic right out of the Harry Potter series.
1.5/5

gabriellaleblanc's review

5.0

This book was fascinating. I love Harry Potter and psychology, so obviously I found this book very interesting. It's a collection of essays by many different college professors of psychology. Having taken 4 different psychology classes myself, it was really cool to see and be able to draw the parallels between the subjects. Great read.

elon's review

4.0

I always find scientific takes on fictional worlds interesting, and Harry Potter and Psychology both lies close to my heart, so this was something I just had to read. It's interesting, but at times also boring and seemingly irrellevant, drawing illogical paralells between psychological phenomenoms and spells in the Potter universe. More focus on the Harry Potter world and less on psychoanalasys and cognitive phenomenoms, or at least with clearer connections to each other, would have been preferable.

lindsayw's review

3.0

In the interest of fully disclosing what a nerd I am, I should mention that I've already read the Harry Potter and Philosophy book. Since I minored in psych, I thought this one would be more interesting and accessible for me, because while the philosophy one was interesting, I have no background in it at all. As it turned out, I actually liked this one a little less.

In fairness, I didn't actually read the whole book. As is always the case with books like this, some chapters were better than others, and I didn't feel like investing in all of the chapters that didn't interest me that much. The ones on Attachment Styles and Self-Harm were particularly interesting, and I actually enjoyed the one on career counseling too, which was surprising. However, I couldn't be bothered to read the chapter on the concept of time, for instance.

So, interesting if you're really a Harry Potter nerd (as I am), but some parts were more worthwhile than others.

sarasomeonex's review

4.0

This was a really good book.
Some chapter were really interesting, some were just boring.

The book was published a couple of months before the last Harry Potter book was published so it needs to be updated.

I was hoping to read more of each character analysis from a psychological perspective.
Overall, it was a good read, I would recommend it to those interested in both psychology and Harry Potter.