Despite the fact that the book in the photo is Deathly Hallows, today, we're talking about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
You guys know that I'm a huge Harry Potter fan. I think that J.K. Rowling is absolutely brilliant, and I'm thoroughly obsessed with the Harry Potter books. I can quote from them far more accurately than I probably should be able to, and I'm deeply attached to the characters. I still want to be Luna Lovegood when I grow up.
Keeping all of this information in mind, you shouldn't be surprised to hear that I was thrilled to learn about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I mean, really. More Harry Potter?? Plus, it's a play, and you all know how I feel about theatre. It's basically the perfect combination for me.
Somehow, however, I didn't end up actually reading Cursed Child until March. I got a copy for Christmas, but life was so busy that I didn't feel I had time, and I really wanted to savor this one. A friend kept telling me that I had to read it so that we could discuss it, so I finally gave in and read it. It's not a long book, and the fact that it's a script makes it shorter, so I breezed through it fairly quickly. When I put it down, I really didn't know what to think.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child features Harry's son, Albus, and tells the story of what it's like to be the polar opposite son of the most famous wizard in the world. Together with his best friend, Scorpius, Albus tries to "fix" a problem that he believes his father has created, but ends up with an even bigger mess on his hands- one that could result in the destruction of the wizarding world altogether.
Now don't get me wrong, this book wasn't terrible by any means. I loved getting to go back into Harry's world. But I was a bit disappointed by it overall.
I think that the biggest issue that I had with Cursed Child was that it just wasn't realistic. Yes, I realize that we're talking about a book series that revolves entirely around wizardry, but hear me out. The majority of the book was based around time travel, which is all well and good, but the whole book kind of just turned into going back through time again and again and living out different scenarios. It was a bit confusing, and I almost felt like it lacked Rowling's usual creativity and spark. In certain aspects it was absolutely brilliant, but in other ways it fell short. There were also parts of it that really just jumped the shark for me. I don't want to delve too deeply into spoilers, but one part of the book in particular left me staring at the page like, "..really?"
The other major issue that I had with Cursed Child was the characterization. The characters are what made me fall in love with Harry Potter to begin with, and several of them just didn't seem to be in character, in my opinion. The way that Harry treated his son at times just blew my mind, and Ron was dumbed down to an extreme. I will say that this book made me love Draco even more, and even helped me not to hate Snape so much even though I still loathe him with every fiber of my being, but I felt that the Golden Trio fell a bit flat, which was disappointing. I remember thinking the same thing about a few other characters as well, but at this point it's been a while since I read the book and I really don't remember. I know that some people have blamed the character issues on the fact that this was a play and not a book, but I don't believe that for a split second. Theatre is filled with some of the strongest, most complex characters I have ever seen, sometimes more so than most books that I read. So I can't say that it's due to the fact that Cursed Child is a script. I really don't understand it, to be honest.
That's not to say that Cursed Child didn't have it's good points. There were some absolutely hilarious one-liners, Scorpius is the most precious character on the planet, and I adored being back at Hogwarts. Overall, it was a fun book. I'll read anything as long as it takes place at Hogwarts. ♥
I would definitely recommend for people to read this, although I would say to be sure that you've read the entire Harry Potter series first, and to take it with a grain of salt. It's a good book though, super interesting. I'd love to see it performed. I feel like that would be the absolute coolest thing. The entire time that I read it, I just wanted to see how it would be staged! Well, one more thing to add to the bucket list, I suppose!
RATING- ⭑⭑⭑⭒⭒
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Have you read Cursed Child?? What did you think??
