sarahjay
Written on Aug 7, 2016
Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany and Jack Thorne, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London's West End on 30th July 2016.
It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn't much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children.
While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.
- ISBN10 0751565350
- ISBN13 9780751565355
- Publish Date 31 July 2016
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
- Imprint Little, Brown
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 352
- Language English
Reviews
adastra
Written on Aug 6, 2016
Leah
Written on Aug 5, 2016
It complements the books really well, and Scorpius and Albus were brilliant. To see another generation of Hogwarts was just amazing, and I know I keep using the word amazing, but that just sums it up for me. I would be over the moon if J.K. actually went back on her word, that this wasn't the last one, and she was going to do a spin-off involving Scorpius and Albus, because it just seemed like a natural progression. But if that's all we're getting? Well it was pretty bloody good. To be back with Ron, Hermione, Harry, Ginny, Professor McGonogall, it was like I'd never left that world. There were twists and turns and surprised galore, and there was nothing I didn't like.
It had me on the edge of my seat the entire time, and I think J.K., John & Jack have done a fantastic job. Absolutely fantastic because this was truly, truly amazing.
clementine
Written on Aug 5, 2016
So, I liked the actual plot for the play well enough. It was nowhere near the complexity of a Harry Potter book, but I thought it was a clever melding of the new generation of characters with the lore we're all familiar with - though there was a bit more of the nostalgia factor than novelty. (Really, the play was an excuse to revisit some classic HP scenes and characters in a sometimes overly soppy way.) I really liked the character of Scorpius, and Albus's character growth was enjoyable. (Though at the beginning of the play he will really test the patience of anyone who sometimes finds Harry a bit whiny...)
A lot of the dialogue and characterization fell short for me. It was pretty obvious that JK Rowling did not write the script. She helped to come up with the story, which explains why the plot is fairly strong. (There's also a classic JKR hiding a majorly important part of the plot in plain sight moment.) But a lot of the dialogue was pretty bad, to be honest. The lighter, funnier bits could be enjoyable, but a lot of it was either very stilted or heavy-handed emotionally. And some of the characterization was just downright off. I've been a Harry Potter fan for 16 years and I've read all the books countless times (and my profile picture was taken at the HP studio tour in London...), there is no way I'm going to be convinced that Ron, deeply flawed as he may be, was drunk during his wedding vows.
Overall I think the play is more a trip down memory lane/potential tear-jerker for diehard HP fans than anything else. People who haven't already read the books or seen the movies aren't going to get much out of this one, because it relies so heavily on the mythology from the books that it just barely stands alone. Plot-wise, I do think it does a good job at that, and the two timelines are fairly cleverly woven together. And I can imagine that the actual play is probably pretty marvellous to see. But I think a lot of HP fans are going to be reluctant to accept this as canon, especially the many who only have the script, and might rather see it as an optional supplement to the seven books. Personally I know I will probably not be including this in my future re-reads of the series.
bestmessever
Written on Aug 2, 2016
inlibrisveritas
Written on Aug 2, 2016
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So I read this the same day I got it, but it’s taken me a long time to get my thoughts on it out. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth installement of the Harry Potter series that is in script format. It focuses on Harry’s youngest son, Albus Severus, and his attendance at Hogwarts. This was written by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne, with J.K. Rowling’s approval.
Okay, so with all the prefacing and such out of the way. my thoughts!
The Cursed Child has it’s problems of course, but for me…this was a wonderful trip back to the school I grew up with. There were a lot of “I knew it!” moments for me and some that really made me think about the story as I knew it. I think for me the strongest part of this (and I know some people would disagree with me) is the character examination. Several characters that we know and love (or hate) go through some changes relating to the storyline…some of the changes are drastic like Hermione’s case. I for one didn’t have a problem with any of it. I wil say that because it’s a play it requires the reader to really read between the lines and to understand that a lot goes on that isn’t described in this story that could contribute to thee changes. I liked seeing the different sides of the characters, because for several of them I could see those sides in them already. As for Albus…well to be frank, he is Harry’s son so he can be a bit of a prat…really the resemblance is fairly striking. The character that won me over was Scorpio…I love him so much and his friendship with Albus was fantastic. I loved the support he gave to his only true friend, even when that friend is capable of being a brat.
The story itself covers several years and moves fairly quickly. I do wish it was a book because there is so much I can tell I’m missing out on with this play format, but it certainly has my mind working anyway. I liked where the plot went, even though some of it was a bit of a reach but honestly the most shocking part of the story was a portion where I just started laughing. I had to wait until my boyfriend read it a week later to tell him why I screamed “I f—ing knew it!” at like 11 at night, but as soon as he got to one of the big reveals he did the same thing. This big “shock” (I think those that read it know what I’m talking about) was something he and I have actually talked about, because the undertones were there. I do totally get that some people hate this reveal and that it seemed like a case of “shock value”, and maybe it is…I’m just bias. I also loved seeing Albus and Scorpio deal with living in the shadows of their fathers, and how in the end it didn’t matter what manner of light cast those shadows because the burden of it was still there.
Overall I really enjoyed it. I happen to like reading script formats, so I had that going for me already, but I think that the story is pretty good. It was fast paced and fun, and we got a bit more insight as to the aftermath of the war.
I will probably post some more spoiler filled thoughts in discussion posts later, just because it sort of kills me not to talk in detail about some of the aspects I’ve had to gloss over here
pamela
Written on Aug 2, 2016
I realise that using a play as a medium already puts limitations on the in depth story telling that so many Harry Potter fans have come to expect, but conveying that depth is part of the talent in writing a script. From the stage directions this play already relies far too heavily on a huge budget and special effects. This is why it feels lazy. Rather than using a limited medium to be truly special and unique it feels like it's trying to be a novel, spliced with a film and getting neither right. I don't doubt for a moment that the play will be spectacular. I've heard great things about the actors, and even better things about the direction, but that's the problem for me. It will be good because it had a budget and not because it's actually good!
The story is exactly what you might expect. Adults with parenting problems, children under the shadows of their parents legacies. My main issue was that there was no uniqueness to the characters. Albus and Scorpio felt like mixtures of James/Harry Potter and Severus Snape/Draco Malfoy. The entire plot revolved around revisiting events from the previous Harry Potter novels. There was scope to give the new generation and indeed the old generation a new villain to fight, but instead we just repeated the same old moments and movements with the same old characters. It was all just more of the same!
I don't want to spoil anything, indeed I don't even think I could. The time travel angle has been discussed to death in countless films, books and video games that what you think might happen does happen. It held no surprises or unique points of interest. Everything had been done. This wasn't simply a play set in the Harry Potter universe. It was a slight retelling of stories already set in the Harry Potter universe!
Do I want to see the play? Sure I do! I'm sure it will be a feast for the senses in every way possible. But the truth is that I, like many people, might never get that chance. I've read countless plays that manage to be deep, dark and atmospheric without all the extra trappings which were such a joy to read. This was not one of them.
Nany
Written on Aug 1, 2016
cornerfolds
Written on Jul 31, 2016
Upon further reflection I've decided to lower my actual rating to 2.5 stars. The more I think about it, the more angry I am at this book. :/
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Read more of my reviews at Cornerfolds.com!
When it was first announced that the script for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child would be published as a book, I was really skeptical. Not only because I don't usually read scripts, but also because the script was not written by Rowling herself. (Rather, it was "based on an original story" by J.K. Rowling.) When it came right down to it, though, I knew I had to have a copy of the eight installment of Harry's story. So I grabbed my Ravenclaw robe and my wand and headed to the midnight release party. Over the next few hours I binge read all 320 pages and... well, now I have feelings.
This story picks up 19 years after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, right at the same place as the original series' epilogue. Harry and Ginny are married with three children: James, Albus, and Lily. The Cursed Child is entirely about Albus, though. The other two are barely mentioned. Of course, Ron and Hermione are also married with children of their own. When this story begins, Albus and Rose, Ron and Hermione's daughter, are beginning their first year at Hogwarts. The nostalgia is back immediately upon reading this very familiar scene, but from there things advance at a breakneck speed.
There are several new characters in The Cursed Child, but the most important ones are Albus and Scorpius, Draco Malfoy's son, who become fast friends in much the same way as Harry, Ron, and Hermione did in The Sorcerer's Stone. I really enjoyed both these new characters and loved the relationship between the two of them! While Albus struggles with living up to the Potter name throughout this book, Scorpius has terrible rumors to contend with, and their similar trials bring the two unlikely friends closer together. One character I didn't much care for was Rose. I wonder if the writers were trying to throw back to how unlikable Hermione was in the first book when they wrote Rose's character, but she didn't work for me at all.
Old characters obviously have a huge part as well, but it seems as if all of them have become extreme versions of their original characters. For example, Ron is basically the comic relief of the play. There is actually a scene in which Ron, attempting to be threatening, holds his wand facing the wrong way toward a perceived enemy. Hermione is extremely logical, sometimes to the point of being rude. Then there's Harry, the overworked Ministry employee. I'll come right out and say it: I didn't like Harry in this play at all. He was uncharacteristically mean to pretty much everyone. I did love seeing Draco again, though!
I mentioned before that the plot itself moves extremely fast and that was another of my problems with this. I suspect it would work better as a play with more time between scenes, more time for characters to speak lines, etc. Unfortunately, this script is all a lot of us have and I feel that it should work just as well on paper since it's being sold for $30. Instead it felt like a lot of fan service and throwbacks to the original series crammed into a two part play.
Don't get me wrong, the nostalgia was there and it was a fun read at times! I liked getting to see the old gang back together and there were some fun surprises, but there were times I had a hard time accepting that this is canon. There were plot holes and inconsistencies and downright weird bits that seemed totally random. I can't say much about the plot without spoiling it and I definitely think that everyone should go in as spoiler free as I did. Click below if you want to see some of my spoilery complaints:
Trolley Witch - What even is this? Never has there been any mention of the Trolley Witch being some kind of 200 year old mystical being with weaponized hands who makes sure kids stay on the train! Whose idea was this because I cannot believe J.K. Rowling did this.
Time turner inconsistencies - This is one I've seen a lot of discussion about around the interwebs and I still don't know what to think. Time turners were a huge part of The Prisoner of Azkaban and I'm having a hard time accepting the way this device is used in the plot of The Cursed Child.
Harry is an asshole - Excuse my French, but who is this Harry? He certainly isn't the character we all came to know and love over the course of seven books and eight films. Harry would not tell his child he wished he wasn't his dad and Harry wouldn't be a jerk to Professor McGonagall.
Voldemort/Bellatrix love child - Um... why? How? WHEN? This is honestly one of the worst plot devices ever. It reads like bad fan fiction and that makes me sad.
No Luna/Neville - Seriously though! Where are they?? There are appearances by almost every other major character in the original series and there's barely a mention of Neville and Luna may as well not exist.
One other thing I need to mention is the setting and there isn't much of it that's new. All the familiar places from the original series are revisited from Hogwarts to the Ministry of Magic to the Forbidden Forest. Obviously, there isn't much room for description in a script, but I had hoped for some new Wizarding World magic to be introduced instead of rehashing every location of the trio's old stomping grounds.
It's not that I hated The Cursed Child. In fact, I actually did enjoy most of my time reading it! But at the end of the day, I expected this to be so much more and, actually, so much less. There was too much crammed into such a short book and much of what was there just seemed like fan service. I am glad that I read it and do think that any Harry Potter fan should read it too, simply because J.K. Rowling signed off on it, but it is definitely not up to par with the previous seven books.
Chelsea
Written on Jul 31, 2016
If you haven't guessed it by the rating already this isn't going to be a very happy review. The one thing I did like though was Draco and Scorpius. They easily stole show here. I found Scorpius to be a very lovable character and he just had such a great personality that I fell in love with him. Draco was himself more or less but you could tell he's changed and grown out of his horrible ways. I actually really loved Draco as a character in the series and was glad he got a chance to start to redeem himself.
What I Didn't Love
This is going to be a big list folks. The one thing I didn't love about this book was how ridiculous it sounded. There will be spoilers below but for those of you who haven't read it yet here's a spoiler free version. There were some events that were made to happen during the battle of Hogwarts that we didn't know about until now. These events led to consequences that Harry and the gang only saw 22 years later which makes sense. What doesn't make sense if how these events happened in the first place. It just completely blew my mind about how strange it was an easily brought my review down by 2 stars. It felt like a cop out almost, a made up plot point just to extend the story a little longer. Well it didn't fit and I didn't like it.
Another thing that let me down was the characters. While you could tell while reading this that the writing style was very different from Jo's, the characters should have stayed mostly the same. You should all know by now that this story is about Harry and his son Albus. Albus is a new character so we didn't have anything to base him on from before. I was trying so hard not to compare this to the original story but when the characters are this badly off then it's hard not to. Harry just didn't feel like himself. He acted childish and mean and it felt like he had no fight left in him at all. I was expecting to see a grown up Harry where some things had of course changed, but this felt like a while new character. Also Ron acted like a stupid idiot all the time and Ginny's character wasn't developed at all. (Kind of like in the movies to be honest.) They just could have done SO MUCH more with this play and it wasn't there.
I think one thing you should all know going into this book is that it isn't the 8th story. I know they marketed it that way but it just wasn't. The plot made no sense and the characters were different. There was a lot left out that could have at least been mentioned and some parts were super confusing (though they might have been less confusing acted out?). Don't go into this believing that it's a continuation of the story because it's not. The story ended at book 7 and this one probably shouldn't have even been released. It felt like a very poorly thought out fanfiction who didn't read the books and only watched the movies. There were details lacking that should have been put in and other parts that should have been taken out completely. Very disappointing in my opinion.
***SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT - SCROLL DOWN TO THE NEXT SECTION TO AVOID THEM***
First of all, Voldemorts baby?! I saw some spoilers mentioning that a month ago but I figured it could be true because it makes 0 sense. Bellatrix would have had to have that baby pretty quick in order to make it to the battle of Hogwarts. Plus how did NO ONE know she was pregnant?! Come on!! Really?! It was just too over the top and didn't fit with these characters at all.
Also can we talk about the trolley witch? What was that about?! Just one more thing that didn't make any sense!
I also found the whole time traveling thing to be really confusing. When they first came back and Harry forbid them from seeing either other I was like what? And then he was talking about how ridiculous it was that he was a Slytherin. I was SO CONFUSED at that point. It was like Harry turned into this meaner version of himself. Plus I had a hard time believing that him and Albus couldn't get along because Albus was outcasted at school when Harry was an outcast like his whole life. Just nothing about this plot fit together AT ALL.
***SPOILERS OVER***