HEY, JK Rowling, stop being such a tyrant.

I’d like to preface this post by saying that I am wholly and completely, absolutely, entirely, all-encompassingly obsessed with Harry Potter.

It is, hands down, the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life. (Sorry, little sister being born. Sorry, friends and family. Sorry, moving to the best city in the world and landing my dream job.) It’s just that Harry Potter practically defined my existence. When Harry was 11, I was 11. When he received his letter from Hogwarts, I was scanning the skies for owls for weeks. When he graduated school and became an auror, I graduated school and became an auror a hotel front desk representative. We very literally grew up together.

Not to mention the sheer prevalence of Harry Potter in my life. The books were initially released in the UK before the US, and I had a friend actually bring me back a copy of the 2nd book from London so I wouldn’t have to wait the extra few months. When I was younger I got in trouble for something while halfway through # 5, and my punishment was that my mom tied the book shut with a ribbon. About half of my middle school friendships were built on a foundation of this one, shared obsession. And when the last book was released my senior year, my best friend and I were first in line at the downtown Borders when the clock struck midnight.

Needless to say, my entire childhood – nay, my entire existence would be different if not for this earth-shattering collection of books. I owe JK Rowling my life.

Which is why, now that I spend two hours a day siting in traffic, I figured snagging the Harry Potter audiobooks and reliving these life-altering adventures would be the perfect way to spend my brakelight-filled mornings and afternoons.

That is – until I started looking for them.

If you’ve never listened to an audiobook before (first of all, START. Audiobooks have affected my life more than the inventions of blu-ray and 3D movies and Siri combined), you have a couple of different options. You can purchase the actual CDs from a store, or you can download it the same way you would a movie or song from iTunes. For my audiobook pleasure, I use an app called Hoopla – which works just like a virtual library. I would highly recommend it – thousands of titles available, and you check them out for free and just have to “return” them within a month. It eats away your data plan, but beats having to pay for each and every book book (which I did for the first few months following my audiobook discovery).

I was disheartened to find, however, that despite the series landing the number-three spot of the most read books in the world, I could not find the audiobook version of the Harry Potter series anywhere. To my great dismay, it was not available on Hoopla. I even checked Audible and iTunes, but to no avail.

There had to be some kind of mistake. Harry Potter was the best thing that ever existed (we’ve already covered this), so why on earth wouldn’t it be available for public consumption? Surely JK Rowling, in her infinite amazingness, would want the Average Joe to be able to experience this dynasty of literary achievement.

But then, oh wait… there’s this little thing called a monopoly, which dominates our capitalist world. And JK Rowling is no fool; the product is in demand and she has the supply. After further investigation, the audiobooks are actually available on Pottermore… to the tune of $40 a pop. This feels vaguely akin to Beatles music not being available on iTunes until 2010.

It’s long been known that JK Rowling is richer than the queen. However recently, Contently also revealed that people would actually prefer her as their leader as well. This doesn’t surprise me; her storytelling ability is certainly the stuff of legend.

But come on, Joanne. You’ve already got the world wrapped around your finger… and moreover, I already OWN several copies of each of your seven masterpieces – as well as some of your work as Robert Galbraith. I love you, I support you, I’m one of your loyal & loving fans. Cut a girl a break.