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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Book Review

By 10:04:00 , , , ,

Last week I read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I am glad I borrowed this book from a friend and did not pay anything for it. I liked it, and rated it three stars on Goodreads. Mind you I also rated the first HP book 3 stars but it is way, way, way better, which rather tempts me to lower the stars on this one. I reviewed the whole Harry Potter series in this post a while ago.

 This book came no where near the others. Not even close. Despite telling myself not to I expected to much. I spent the much of the time while reading it being annoyed at the whole plot of the story. It did not have that magicalness, or beauty of the actual books. I never really got into the story I think I can mostly blame that on the layout and style of the book, It is written in play format, so everything is dialogue or 

 "Suddenly there is another rumble in the chimney and DRACO comes down hard, surrounded by cascading soot and dust.
Everyone looks at him surprised. He stands and brushed the soot off himself."

Every emotion and action is told. Which gets painful, as does the overuse of "suddenly". The reader if jolted around from scene to scene. It is easy to read but still confusing as to how we actually got to where we got to in such a short time. It is after all called a "Play by J. K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany." There were no epic plot twists, and the whole plot felt rather cliché, it is just like so many other time travel stories. I liked the old time travel in the books by J.K. Rowling, that was quite unique and made a lot of sense, but the stuff in this book is as annoying and overused as almost every other time travel book. The story feels like fan fiction, which I guess it is as it is not really written by Rowling. I had not expected it to be as good as the other books but I had hoped it would be a bit better than it was.

Lets spin and travel through time and put everything that happened in the beloved HP series in peril of not ever happening.


I felt as though I was being forced to imagine the whole thing on a stage and as a play instead of it feeling real. So if you read this remember that it is not a book, it is a play. I would rather like to see it on a stage, but I just could not enjoy it as a book. It does not feel as if it was ever intended to be a book. After all Jack Thorne the playwright did write most of it. (I noticed that though J.K. Rowling gets her name big on the cover, he actually gets it twice, and it is Rowling’s name that sells the book, and they are her characters.)
Yes sometimes even I take slightly blurry photos... and let people see them.
But I had to have it exposed long enough to get the spin. Oh well...

 But since when does Ron own the joke shop? And what happened to George and young Fred, they are never mentioned! (A rather depressing fact.) There were a few things like that which felt inconsistent and rather bothered me. Also who is the cursed child? And what is with the weird book cover? I still don't understand either? And seriously Voldemort had a child? <very slight spoiler

 But there were some good bits, I really liked the friendship between the two main characters, Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy. Scorpious was the bright spot in the book, he was the only character I really liked from the start and of course to the end. He was the one who drew me into the story and made me laugh. And it was nice to see a few of our old friends again, but it just did not do it for me.
I also liked one of the alternate realities where some characters who should be dead were still living in them, and I enjoyed that bit. So I guess you may enjoy it, but just don't expect that much.... not that I did, I guess I just couldn't help it, but I do kinda want to forget all that book and just read the original series again.. still the most annoying thing could have been how the time turning put all the original books at risk of not being true anymore.

 And as to why I did not take any photos of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child with the other books well there they are:

  • I could not be bothered to pull all the others out of my shelf and lug them around
  • The covers look terrible together.... they are just a nope nope nope
  • It is not worthy of sitting beside them
  • And did you notice the first photo? I was in the mood to rip up another book of plays that I bought over a year ago (for the purpose of ripping up for photos) and had not yet had the heart to destroy.
Have you read HP and the Cursed Child?
Do you like time travel in books?
Are you planning on reading this book?

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About the Author

Clare Farrelly is a professional photographer. She is an Australian and lives in NSW Australia. In her free time she likes to read, do random crafts or sewing projects found on Pinterest, journal, write articles and stories. Most important, she is a daughter of the living God, saved by his grace.

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8 comments

  1. Liv Hammonds15 August 2016 at 11:55

    I was very disappointed with *The Cursed Child*, too. So many things were changed that put the other books at risk... (*sighs*)

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    1. Clare15 August 2016 at 13:09

      Yep, it is rather like that, thanks for stopping by :D

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  2. Jane Maree15 August 2016 at 14:33

    Yeah...it was depressingly disappointing. AND GEORGE AND FRED WEREN'T IN IT. Harry Potter can't be truly Harry Potter without a Gred and a Forge. :)

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    1. Clare15 August 2016 at 16:11

      Although I did not like those characters quite as much as you do, I still totally agree, did they also die or something? It is just wrong that they are not there. When you think about it though HP has always been a lot about his friend too, helping him do everything, so you can't just get rid of them.

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  3. CG @ Paper Fury24 August 2016 at 10:25

    This is EXACTLY why I don't plan to read it. :P I can't see how the play-format would make good reading. Like where is the emotion and depth and description?!? Nopity no. I will be content to read everyone's spoilery reviews and just learn about the book that way haha. I even heard JK Rowling did no writing, just helped with the plot? I don't get it. How can the "8th Harry Potter book" NOT be solely written by the author? I think it shouldn't be called the 8th book, since it's a play and not even really a book. :/

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    1. Clare24 August 2016 at 11:05

      Yes, totally! Don't wast time on the book, not when there are so many better ones out there. JK did no writing, well I am not surprised. It seems the longer I think about this book and the more I find out about it the more I dislike it.

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  4. Zoe N.1 September 2016 at 09:52

    *sighs* Honestly, this is what I was afraid of. :\ I wasn't planning on reading this in the first place just because I was nervous it would disappoint me and ruin my love for the series, so I'm sad to hear you felt so disappointed by it. :( Nonetheless, thanks for sharing and, as always, fabulous review! <3

    ~ Zoe @ Stories on Stage

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    1. Clare1 September 2016 at 20:07

      Thank for dropping by ;) it is rather sigh worthy, I am currently trying to erase the memory of that book from my mind except for whenever I may need to remember it to convince other people not to bother reading it. I was considering buying it for myself when it appears in second hand sores, (which I suspect it will soon, because it is being bought by so many people where I live that, the shops kept selling out and then decided put a limit on the amount of copies one person was allowed to get at a time......) but I am not so sure it deserves any space on my shelves.

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