Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne (Adaptation), John Tiffan [Review]

Title: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Author: J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne (Adaptation), John Tiffan

Genre: Fantasy, plays, fiction, drama

Publisher: Arthur A. Levine Books

Publishing date: July 31, 2016

Pages: 320 

Rating

★★★✩✩

Hello! I’m finally reviewing this book, my sister gave it to me on my birthday, best gift this year J

            As you may know this is not a novel, it’s the script of a play, so it’s a really different reading

Harry, Albus and Ginny.

experience.  In this play the story starts where the seventh book ended, Albus Severus Potter is about to start his school life at Hogwarts, when he gets into the Hogwarts express he meets Scorpius Malfoy, Draco’s son, and they become best friends. Albus gets sorted in Slytherin, and it’s inevitable that people starts comparing him with his father and pointing out all their differences, this annoys Albus because he is not the boy everyone expected him to be, a copy of Harry. In the first few pages 4 years pass and with each year Harry and Albus relationship strains even more, until Albus hates his father, just because he is the famous Harry Potter.

            Albus gets what he thinks is a chance to prove himself, to prove he can be better than his father, so he will team up with Scorpius and a new character named Delphi, and they’ll use a time turner that will send them in a catastrophic adventure to the past that can change the present to good or bad.

            Before reading it, I’ve read really mixed opinions about it, some parsons loved it and other ones hated it… I didn’t love it or hate it, I just liked it.

            As it is a script, the reading experience is really different because almost everything is dialogue with few descriptions, because of this the book is really fast paced, and easy to read.

Ron, Hermione and Rose.

            I think I feel dragged toward bad guys because I totally loved Draco, better than the full grown up Harry, and I loved his son, Scorpius, he was my favorite character, he is really sweet while Albus is all bitter. Draco and Scorpius relationship is complicated, but it felt real and I love how they got close in the end. On the other hand Harry’s and Albus’ relationship was really bad, and even thou they overcome it in the end, I still felt them strained, and harry was a bad parent sometimes, there was a moment where Albus did something stupid (it’s all he does) and Harry blames Scorpius saying he is a bad influence to Albus and wants him away from his son, not caring he is the only friend Albus has.

            James and Lily don’t appear much in the book, but I would’ve liked to see Harry’s relationship with his other two kids. I really liked Hermione’s and Ron’s relationship, but I totally despised their daughter, Rose, she was like the mean girl at school, and believed herself to be better than others just because she was Granger-Weasley (yeah, I don’t know why she used Hermione’s last name first, and… why she always needed to say both last names?)

            There were some inconsistencies in the plot regarding things told in the books, for example

Draco and Scorpius.

they prepared polyjuice potion super fast when it took Hermione months in the second book. Things were conveniently easy to Albus’ crew sometimes, it seemed like destiny wanted them to do stupid things, c’mon, the security at Hogwarts and the Ministry of Magic was super weak, Albus’ crew could get in and leave really easily. There were moments in which I couldn’t believe what was happening, it seemed like a cliché and predictable unnecessary drama, and suddenly Cedric was like the most loved and important person in the world, all this drama it’s his fault.

            It was a light read and I enjoyed it, but I think it lacked the magic Harry Potter had, and I didn’t like the way the authors managed certain things, if you like harry potter then you’ll enjoy it, but as for me, I won’t take it as canon, it’s more like a fanfic blessed by J.K Rowling.