I like Harry Potter, because she handled the plot twists well, kept the action moving, made a neat dorm/school/castle, and delivered on that basic promise of "wizards doing wizard things".

I tend to pick on the rendition of Voldemort, because I find his villain scheming skills lackluster, he unnecessarily overreached to be "threatening the entire wizarding world" when the stakes would've felt better calling it at Hogwarts, London, or Britain, and because I was not thrilled by the final showdown (from about the point Harry uses the Deathly Hallow stone to the end of the Battle of Hogwarts). I understand that a smarter villain would've been an unfair challenge for the average teen, but I think the random bits of trivia and lore could feel more rewarding to the readers if more of them were used for clever turnabout. I overall feel Voldemort's simplicity shone too much clarity on the Jesus parallel narrative, and while I appreciated that narrative in Lord of the Rings for subtlety and guile, I would've liked Harry's coming of wizarding adulthood to feel less like a conflux of popularity, blessed luck (the mother's love protection, the soul fragment thing, and the fact only Dumbledore got Voldemort to cast a different spell from Avada Kedavra) and jock quidditch heroism, and more of a matter of growing wisdom, with greater insight to how spells can be used in clever ways to tackle bigger, older, meaner opponents.

I wanted a more Hermione or Luna Lovegood version of the books, for smart teens who like puzzles.

I still enjoyed what I got, but all of the areas for which I thought "this could be better" have tempered my own amateur writing skills.