You hate a book because it's long? I wouldn't call the HP novels 'high art', but it's really unfair to say you hate them just because of their length. (And I wouldn't even consider the first few to be long novels in the first place.)

Hating things for their length is kind of.. ridiculous. Which is not to say all long-winded books are great or that shorter books are dumb, but a book should be judged by its content, not its page number. That just sounds lazy.

The first HP book is only like 310 pages.

Would you prefer to try some book because it's short, like it, and wish it was longer?

So how did you like War and Peace?

I can understand avoiding reading certain books because of their length. While I'm a big fan of many very long novels, not everyone has the patience for them, and not everyone can keep track of all the details from the start of the book to when it ends.

Even as an adult, I find I spend a decent amount of time in the childrens' section of bookstores. A big part of this is to look at what LEGO books are out nowadays. But even today a lot of my favorite book series like A Series of Unfortunate Events or Artemis Fowl are medium-length novels geared toward children and young adults.

Still, I'm glad you found some relatively long novels that can hold your interest! Perhaps sometime you'll have the patience to give some longer novels like Harry Potter a second chance, but there's no reason you're obligated to if the length proves too intimidating.