Books

Book 458: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne

Rowling, JK, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne - Harry Potter and the Cursed ChildI’m glad I waited until after a lot of the hype died down and that I didn’t come across any spoilers, in the time that it took me to get to read this one. I also haven’t read any other reviews so I’m not sure what other people think about it. (I have plenty stored on my reader though.)

It’s fairly simple for me though, it was pretty much just a meh for me. I’ll read it again because I loved having the opportunity to dive back into Harry Potter’s world, but if I’m honest there are better works on Pottermore.

I think a large part of this has to do with this being a script and not a novel. The other part of it is that I think there might have been too many “cooks in the kitchen.”

J.K. Rowling’s greatest strength has been a combination of her ability to write teenage characters and her minor characters. Neither of these are at their best during this script, it’s not surprising about the minor characters because there can only ever be so many actors on a stage, but the two main characters are teenagers: Scorpius Malfoy and Albus Potter. Albus nears the moodiness and whininess Harry reaches in Harry Potter and the Oder of the Phoenix.

I also wasn’t very impressed with the story as it’s been done before. I won’t go into spoiler detail, but suffice to say that time travel was involved and we go to revisit a few key elements of the original series from different perspectives including the Triwizard Tournament and Harry Potter’s parents’ death.

This is all sad to me, because I actually didn’t mind the afterward in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I love love loved finding out what Ron, Hermione and Harry have been up to and the few guest appearances of other favorites from the original series.

Recommendation: If you liked the original series then you should definitely read it, but don’t get your hopes up. I recently read a rumor (MTV website) they may be turning it into a movie (or trilogy) and I honestly hope they do because it needs so much fleshing out to become a valuable part of the Harry Potter universe and not just a blip on the radar.

Opening Line: “Dad. He keeps saying it.”

Closing Line: “So do I.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

17 thoughts on “Book 458: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne”

    1. I will have to check it out. And I agree I’ll definitely revisit it next time I re-read the series but not with the fondness of the first seven that’s for sure.

  1. I shamefully have not even finished the original series yet. I have watched the movies, though, and am slightly curious about this one.

    1. You might not mind this one having only done the movies. They made some character choices that felt more based on the films than the books which was unfortunate as a reader.

  2. I just finished this one last night after my daughter encouraged me to read it. I enjoyed it, but it definitely took me a little while to get used to the script format (which leaves much of the setting to the imagination).

  3. I’m not sure I’ll even bother with this one. I’ve heard a lot of ‘meh’ responses and I think I’d rather preserve my memory of the original series as the complete story.

  4. I read it and also felt meh. She didn’t actually write it, so it felt like fan fiction to me. Always fun to dive back into that world, but I feel like you wouldn’t miss much/anything if you didn’t read it.

    1. I agree. And that’s why I felt Fantastic Beasts was soooo good. You could see the emphasis on the minor characters that was missing from this.

      1. Ugh I still haven’t seen it! (or read the screenplay) my sister, mum, niece, and I wanted to have a girls dinner/movie night this past week but they only had a 950pm or 1005pm showing at our 2 closest theatres, and that just wasn’t doable for us; we were so bummed

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