>>21
A nice specific example of what I said, very interesting. But I never said it was the characters just that there is a clear difference between the numbers of "interesting" characters in classics and popular fiction. How it makes you think and what it makes you think of is something we both agree on and you did a good job picking something specific and well thought out.
While Harry Potter may be a bildungsroman I do not believe that its failure to describe the author's world is a reason it is not considered a classic. When I read a book I hardly think about the author's world or how they were living, I think purely about the world of the story that they created. The problem is that HP is not a universal bildungsroman, most of the issues are caused by magic and solved with magic so how can the audience relate exactly to such fantastical situations?
I also agree that friends are a major reason to start reading a book but the book itself, especially if its part of a series, is what keeps the reader involved. If the first volume of a book was poor I surely would not pick up the second volume.