Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Book Review

Finished reading

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Harry Potter #8)

by John Tiffany (Adaptation), Jack Thorne, J.K. Rowling

★★★★

Expectation

I was afraid of not liking this book a lot. Also I accidentally heard a spoiler while talking with a friend about it. I refused to believe what I heard and was perplexed by how absurd it sounded. Remembering the last scene from book seven and “feel good” vibes about it – except for making Draco slightly bald! I really didn’t like that part! – I was really into reading more from these stories. The fact that this book is written as a dramatic text made me apprehensive. I expected it to be okay and was settled for a mediocre reading experience.

Summary

Getting into the story was easy to do. The background was familliar as were most of the characters. All the fast forwarding trough few years of Hogwarts experiences was understandable but I still did not like it. As many Harry Potter fans I love little quirks and details that were put into the books. Reading a script for a play made me feel cheatd out inner character input and descriptions. I was not watching a play but reading it; so there was definitely a whole dimension that was meant to be experienced visually missing.

As for the characters, my mood was jumping up and down the whole time. The villain of the story was a character that annoyed me from the second scene it appeared. Grown up versions of book series protagonists seemed a bit strange and off from what I remember – though this also might be due to the script writing.

New characters, and here I primarily mean Albus and Scorpius; were interesting enough. The character of Albus suffered most from script writing syndrome. I would have loved to get more insight into his motivation and personal growth.

Scorpius on the other hand was an extremely lovable character. His geekines and quirkiy banter dialogue made me smile at every scene he was part of. Honestly I was mesmerized.

“SCORPIUS: I can’t quite believe I did that.

ALBUS: I can’t quite believe you did that either.

SCORPIUS: Rose Granger-Weasley. I asked out Rose Granger-Weasley.

ALBUS: And she said no.

SCORPIUS: But I asked her. I planted the acorn. The acorn that will grow into our eventual marriage.

ALBUS: You are aware that you’re an utter fantasist.”

I think that the plot twist of this book exploits the messiest part of the Harry Potter universe. The one thing that the cynics point at as the loophole in the otherwise richly written world. I love that somebody addressed this issue and filled in some much needed gaps. As per usual I’m only hinting for fear of making spoilers for future readers since I think many people are cautious about this book.

Conclusion

I’m not a fan of drama texts but this one has brought me back some magic I’ve felt reading the Harry Potter books. Parts of it were kinda messy and had me on the edge of my seat while reading. The main villain could have used some more “screen time” to shine out. This way the whole backstory was put down in a few short sentences. Other parts were pure delight to read. I got to love some new characters and I got to be mopey about some old ones! Any Harry Potter fan will appreciate a new dose of magic it brings.
Also now I’m really interested in watching the play