It’s been years since I picked up a Harry Potter book. The craze pretty much died for me once I completed the series. Sorry, I’m not a uber diehard fan like that. Please don’t crucify me! But I loved it growing up. I even read the series three times! Though it ended perfectly (I could not ask for a better ending), the story had me craving for more. And I’m not the only one.
Nine years. Nine loooong years we finally get another addition to the famous Harry Potter series! As if Rowling’s other work Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them wasn’t enough, people kept pestering Rowling for more Harry Potter to the point where she finally said, “HERE! DAMN!” But jokes on the most of you folks, book 8 is in the form of a play. Hey, look at that I rhymed!
Written by Jack Thorne and John Tiffany and approved by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child takes us 19 years after the events of the Battle at Hogwarts, to a new story about Harry’s youngest child, Albus Severus Potter. It’s now his turn to have mind-blowing adventures at Hogwarts. But it’s hard being the son of the famous Harry Potter who is now Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It’s almost as if he wishes he can go back in time and change the past…
Well doing this review is more difficult than I thought. I have so much mixed emotions in this book. Was I thrust back into the wizarding world of Harry Potter? Yes, but I didn’t fully get the sensation that I had all those years ago. Book 8 started amazing, and then it was just….stale. I’m still very into the story, but I figured out the plot and end before I even got halfway through the book. I wasn’t expecting daddy issues to be the center of the book. Or maybe I should’ve expected it? I mean come on we all have issues with our parents, yet I’m not exactly sure why Albus had one with Harry. Your dad is famous, with great reasoning. Of course, you’re going to be compared. But after a couple of years of breaking the mold and proving that he’s nothing like his father, Albus still felt like the black sheep. I guess this is what celebrity children feel like when they try to go out into their own.
There have been rumors that Rowling has been trying to step away from the wizard franchise to do other genres, but fanatics just won’t let her grow. Rowling may have signed off on this book/play, but I don’t think she had 100% input in the story. And I’m not saying that because it wasn’t fully her story, but more like she’s tired.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was an okay book, but I’m not saying that you shouldn’t read it. Every Potter fan should read it. If you want a mini-arc to see what the Potter-Granger-Weasley children are like, this is for you. If you want an update on what Harry and the gang are doing, this is for you. Keep in mind that it is a play, so don’t expect the usual magical wonderment that comes with the territory. But for the first-ever play, I think this was adequate.