International Women's Day: Why I went from being a Proud Potterhead to a Reluctant one

As I write this, though, I wonder what I am. On the one hand, the series was a huge part of my growing up, and growing-into-myself years (I hit adolescence only at 22). And that world is still where I -- with a few friends, colleagues and one sibling -- often escape to. On the other hand, I haven't watched the much discussed Back to Hogwarts yet.

The Casual Vacancy didn't sweep me up the way a series would: the anticipation for the next book, and a whole multiverse to lose yourself in. All the same, when it hit the stands, student-me vehemently countered naysayers: A writer doesn't have to stop once the literary world declares she's peaked, does she? Of course, she's allowed to dabble, to fail, not to impress with a swish-and-flick of a pen.

I held on to this view even when I ran to get me a copy of The Cursed Child to review for the newspaper I worked at, only to be disappointed: there was so much fun fan-fiction out that put the sloppy play to shame.

Over the years, my stance has changed about what my once-hero gives voice to. While I don't condone most of what the billion-dollar author has been recorded saying, I still take refuge in the Hogwarts, the Burrows, the Diagon Alleys, and even in the gloomy12, Grimmauld Places.

Do I continue to be a fan? Depends on who qualifies as a fan. I've won Harry Potter quizzes at a book-nerdy workplace. Snatches of conversations I have are full of Potterworld references, jokes, conspiracy theories, and whatnot.

My sister puts it well: "It's so comfortingly familiar, I can fall asleep listening to it."

It's my familiar too: this fuzzy space in an introvert's head. It keeps me company through my socially-anxious existence; Patronous-protects me as I plod Phoebe-like through the park criss-crossed by the male (or sometimes a less gendered) gaze.

But it might not be any of this, had I, and a whole bunch of my familiars, and more importantly unfamiliars, grown up on a different biblio-staple. Or feasted on a wider spread. Not just the Narnias and Magic Faraway Trees that many of us outgrew, but perhaps the Percy Jacksons.

I don't regret reading the series. But would I read it for the first time now? Perhaps not.

So what else would I liked to have read? Definitely titles with more relatable female, or just not a majority of cis-het male leads.

Some of my current favourites (I still read a lot of children's and YA books) did exist back then but I hadn't caught a book-lover's whiff of them, and some likely hadn't been thought up yet.

Here goes an attempt at a binge-worthy wish-I'd-read-list. Apologies: spoilers ahead.

1. The Nevermoor series

A slightly broody character who loves black, feels misunderstood because she's thought to be cursed, and a foil patron -- popular, borderline-depressingly cheerful, very visible in his popping outfits. A delightful fantasy series by Australian writer Jessica Townsend, it subverts stereotypes, often layer by layer with every book. Most people I've recommended this to can't wait for the fourth title, hopefully out later this year.

2. The Song of the Lioness series

The colleague who suggested this to me had read somewhere that this was the antithesis to GoT, or the Song of Fire and Ice series for fellow GRR Martin fans. It's just as rich in characters, war, violence and a fascinatingly brutal world. A tetralogy by Tamora Pierce published in the 1980s, it features leading girl-who-passes-off-for-a-boy Alanna 'Alan' of Trebond, who goes on to become the first woman knight in her kingdom.

3. The Inkworld trilogy

In this trilogy by Cornelia Funke, Meggie and her bookbinder father share a love for...well, books. He teaches her how to read, but never reads out to her. Little does she know that when he does, characters literally come alive, and creatures from the regular world disappear between the covers. Is that what happened to Meggie's mother? While fire eater Dustfinger discovers their world, Meggie and her father Mo discover his, where fairies are notorious and blue.

4. The Fly by Night series

Mosca Mye, an orphan who's known little love, decides to escape the tyranny of her uncle's mill, decides her ticket to freedom is helping swindler Eponymous Clent flee, and tagging along with her riotously deadly goose Scarcen. Mosca, a compulsive liar, convinces an equally deceitful Clent that she'd make him secretary, and they head for the city of Mandelion. Not quite horror, not quite sci-fi, and not quite fantasy, it takes great restraint to take breaks anywhere amid this two-part Francis Hardringe series.

5. The Scholomance trilogy

With its final instalment coming out in a few months, this trilogy unravels a world with cities we're familiar with, including Mumbai. It runs on mana -- energy you create -- and malia -- energy taken from others. Here, monsters, malefecaria, are out to get the magically gifted, especially tweens and teens. So they're all bundled off to the Scholomance which, located in the Void, has no teachers, and no holidays, and offers only a tiny chance of getting out alive years later. That's where El (Galadriel, named for Tolkein's elf queen), prime suspect for dark sorceress in the making, is when you meet her in A Deadly Education, Naomi Novik's most gripping book yet.

Here's an additional, quick five.

6. The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordon

7. The Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden

8. The Last Dragonslayer series by Jasper Fforde

9. The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf

10. Nimona by Noelle Stevenson