I started reading Harry Potter when the first book came out (1998), and being "Hogwarts-aged" (10-11) I eagerly awaited my acceptance letter into the school.
Of course none came, but instead of lamenting the fact that I was a mere Muggle, I read the series avidly until its conclusion. Along the way, I gained a bit of rationality to balance out my overactive imagination and realized that it was a work of fiction. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed daydreaming about it from time to time. It was certainly an important part of my childhood - teen years (as the last book was released shortly before I turned 20) and I grew up quite a lot on those books.
When Twilight came out, I had just graduated high school and my younger sister, a soon-to-be high school junior, got a copy of the book. She raved about it, saying it was the "next Harry Potter", and I was offended that anyone would compare what I'd heard to be "Young Adult Vampire Romance" as anything close to the fantastical world developed within the Harry Potter series. In the winter break of my freshman year of college, I finally caved and read it as I had nothing else to read.
I didn't hate it then. I wasn't a fan of Stephenie Meyer's writing by any stretch of the imagination, but it seemed a pleasant and quick read. As the rest of the series came out, my sister would get the books without fail on their release date, and I would later read them, becoming more and more disillusioned with the entire concept.
It fell apart around book 3, and hard. It became little more than romantic teenage fluff, and I was kind of upset, to be honest. While I'd never believed Meyer to possess much writing prowess, I thought that she would at least improve as the series went on, adding to the characters and substantially increasing my interest in the plot. Instead, it devolved into madness, appearing to be little more than fanfiction written by fans of the first book (maybe the first two, but that's being generous).
Having read both the Twilight and Harry Potter books, and having viewed the movies for both, I'll have to say that it's Harry Potter for me by a long shot. Not that either series of films is particularly respectable, but as for the books, Harry Potter wins...
...of those two series.
I still have a strong, strong bond with Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Where Harry Potter shaped my youth and teen years, The Dark Tower series has been the defining series for my late teens and early twenties.
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