Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two (Special Rehearsal Edition)

by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne

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More like an overall impression of the book than an actual review but regardless I really need to say something about this lol.

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It's been a very very very long time since I picked up a book that I couldn't put down till I was done with it, the Cursed Child gave me that awesome feeling once again and now I want to read more which makes me eternally grateful for it for restoring that feeling in me, but what I'm more grateful for is the extra look I got to see in this book about the world I loved and will continue loving till God knows when.

This is my first time reading a script instead of a full novel but it wasn't hard to follow at all, there were directions everywhere that made it easy to build the image in my head. Now I haven't read that many fan fiction stories in my life about this series but it kind of felt like it was more similar to elements you'll find there than the novels JK wrote, it might be because this script was written by three people and that makes it heavily influenced by all of them. Similar to Chaos Dragon, an anime that was written by some of the greatest minds in that industry but ended up being an awful train wreck because of having so many of them working on a single series.

Was the Cursed Son the same? Not in the slightest... To me at least it wasn't, I enjoyed the new look it gave me into the Wazarding World 22 years after Voldemort's defeat. Harry's son ending up in Slytherin wasn't something I expected at all, having him become Scorpius's best friend was an even more far fetched turn of events but the most surprising thing was Scorpius himself... I didn't imagine for one second think that Draco Malfoy's son would be like this, he could've been put in Hufflepuff and still fit in like a glove, Ravenclaw would've suited him as well.

The time travel aspects had me confused at first because as far as I know Time Turners only rewind hours, not years but the explanation at the end that this was really a time turner made it exciting. I'm a fan of time travel so seeing the butterfly effect it'll inevitably cause when attempting such a huge alteration was exciting to see and I looked forward to seeing how it'll affect everyone. I read that people considered Harry's threats to McGonagall to be out of character for him and bit of a con to the book but to me it seemed like a kind of obvious thing considering that Albus was altering the world when his father was only 14. Having a slightly different personality because of that is a possible consequence.

The biggest surprise in that example was Hermione's change, I mean becoming that bitter because of the "jealousy never happening" was a meh reason tbh, but it also can be explained that by changing what he did, he altered the events the led Hermione to be the brilliant witch we know which again is a consequence of time travel. She did end up becoming a total badass regardless in the current time line though (the bookcase scene was one of my favourites), I always thought that Hermione would be the next Minister of Magic for some reason so it was nice to see and she also ended up becoming the most wanted member of the resistance in another timeline, which might I add was also cool to know about.

The lack of appearance from the other character (Molly, Arthur, George, the kids and so on) was a bit of a letdown since I wanted to see a lot more about everyone here, however since I got to see Snape being a hero once again I'm going to let it slide, Ron's small part in this book was another thing I enjoyed because for some reason I never enjoyed his character at all. He's important regardless of my feelings but I still don't have to like him.

In the end I give this book a 4/5, not because it's bad but because it would've been so much better as an actual novel. There are so many things that were skimmed over because this is a script for a play but if it was a novel then seeing them make their trip to Amos's nursing home, getting to know more about how the ministry looked like now or operated would've been more fleshed out and everything else time travel wise would've have had the opportunity to add in depth details to them. Seeing a movie with the old cast would've been awesome as well but oh well, I still had fun reading it!!