I was the victim of amazon's algorithms. You know the one when books keep popping up and the bot recommends them to you: according to your reading behaviour, you are certainly interested in THIS one too.
It kept popping up for years and for a long time I said, no, most certainly NOT. I wasn't interested in the title and the cover! I didn't even look it up, my impression was that it must be about some "cool" guy with a long coat and a hat in Dresden (the German town). Whatever he was supposed to be doing there didn't interest me.
Then came a time when I was looking for new books to read. And I go into shops or look around online. I live in Germany, so there are not many books in English lying around in the shops, and I didn't find what I wanted. So I said, OK, algorithm, you won. I 'll read that weird book, but if the main character is this arrogant wannabe cool guy I think he is, I won't read on.
So I came to the Dresden Files with very, very, very low expectations.
Storm Front had me the moment Harry vomited into the bucket, lol.
That destroyed the image of the "cool" guy.
So I think I'm one of the few people who really liked the first two books, because I didn't expect them to be good.