Harry Potter has the hype behind it though.
It's like Twilight.
Only people who seriously read fantasy books would ever actually end up finding books better than HP. Normal people only hear about HP and nothing else.
Don't ever compare Harry Potter to Twilight!!! Twilight is shit with mediocre everything. Harry Potter has great characters and development, par magic abilities and setting, and werewolves that are actual fucking werewolves.
Seriously read fantasy books? I don't seriously read, I grab a book, ponder through a eighth of it, insert my character in it in my imagination, realize I don't know enough what is going to happen to make my character fit, read some more, get a snack, eat snack while on Dats, play some video games, go back and finish the book, insert my character in it again for fun in my mind.
blade doesn't really look for books, his normal method of finding good books is randomly grabbing books off the shelf at a thrift store. blade has this little understanding with luck, he finds amazing things in thrift stores and onlines, and I gets cursed computers.
I can sense when a book is awesome by just holding it. Bonus points for awesome covers:
Just go online and google good fantasy books and hope you find a list that suits your tastes.