Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne
Arthur A. Levine books
July 31st, 2016
A long awaited 8th tale in the Harry Potter series, this one is a script for a play currently being performed in London.
By this time, Harry and friends are all adults, and Harry and Ginny have children. One of their sons, Albus Severus, is pretty miserable. He hasn’t lived up to the Potter legacy–he’s not handy on a broom, he isn’t much of a wizard, and worst of all: The Sorting Hat sorted him into Slytherin.
Albus doesn’t have a lot of friends, but the one friend he does have is his very best friend, Scorpius Malfoy. He and Malfoy end up in the worst sort of trouble when their good intentions send things spiraling further and further out of control.
Harry confiscated a time turner–one that is rumored to send people back further than the usual couple of hours. Hermione–now the Minister of Magic–keeps it hidden in her office rather than destroying it.
After Albus overhears Amos Diggory beg Harry to use it to go back and save his son from death at the Triwizard Tournament so many years ago, Albus just knows it’s the right thing to do and is determined to set things right and make his father proud of him after all.
Naturally, things aren’t so simple, and after disastrously changing the past and the future a few times, the boys realize what a mistake they’ve made.
From the first scene of the script, the old magic starts to come back. It’s a pleasurable nostalgia trip to the old school grounds, and interesting to see how Harry, Hermione, Ginny and Ron have grown up and become adults. I can see why so many reviews have compared it to fan fiction, as not only are most of the old locations and characters visited, but through alternate timelines and dreams we also get to see characters we don’t expect to ever see again. While not the strongest of the stories, Cursed Child is a fun read and a delightful way to spend an afternoon. A Broadway run is being considered, those tickets will be highly sought after if it happens.
JL Jamieson is a strange book nerd who writes technical documents by day, and book news, reviews, and other assorted opinions for you by night. She is working on her own fiction, and spends time making jewelry to sell at local conventions, as well as stalking the social media accounts of all your favorite writers.