Harry Potter and the cursed child – Review

My most anticipated release for this year was Harry Potter and the cursed child. I finished reading the book yesterday and here are my thoughts about this book –

When Deathly Hallows came, I was really sad thinking that would be the last Harry Potter I will get to read. And then after 9 years, this book came out. We did not even expect Rowling to write another Harry Potter book. I was excited but also scared that this book may not meet my expectations. I was afraid it might disappoint me, considering how excited I was. I read few reviews which said this book wasn’t that good. But I had reserved a copy of the book at the bookstore and collected it yesterday morning – the day this book was released. Thankfully I did not order it from Amazon as people are being kept waiting for 2 days to receive a copy of this book I heard.

I read this book with low expectations and it exceeded my expectations. I expected a 3 star book and I got a 5 star book. What people should keep in mind before reading this book is that it was written for theater. It is A SCRIPT FOR A PLAY AND NOT A BOOK. So you would expect shorter dialogues and scenes. The scenes may not have all the smaller details and descriptions that you would expect from the book. Also focus is more on dialogues and less on scene setting and less focus on action. Also they have a time limit for the play so they cannot add every single detail into the play. I did enjoy the dialogues a lot, especially Ginny Weasley’s. Ginny became one of my most favorite characters in this book. I felt Ron and Hermione were acting little foolish in this book for some reason. They were like funny characters just added to introduce some humor and nothing else. The primary focus was on friendship and love again and that was great.

I think I got a proper closure with this book. All these years I was wondering what happened to Harry, Ron and Hermione after they left school. Questions like – did Harry become an auror? what was their life like after school? – would pop into my head. Now I know what their life was like after they left Hogwarts.

It was such a different experience. I discussed with husband after reading every few pages this time. This book made me quite nostalgic. It reminded me of all those years when I waited eagerly for a Harry Potter book to get released. It took me back to those days when I was crazy and mad about Harry Potter (not that I am not anymore as I still am).

The one character that I was wanting to read more about was Teddy Lupin. There is no mention of him or George Weasley in the book. 😦 The book is mostly about Harry Potter and his son Albus Potter and the rest of the characters are not so important. What I loved the most about the book was that Draco Malfoy’s son and Harry Potter’s son end up becoming close friends, even though their fathers did not like each other much. I thought it was brilliantly done.

It was funny, suspenseful, had lot of twists, magical and amazing as all Harry Potter books are. I am now wishing that the play would come to US too so that I can watch this great story come alive. I think most people were disappointed with the format of the book, but if you read this book without expecting it to be like the other Harry Potter books, you will love it. Also, I read it mostly for the story and not for the writing as it is just a play script.

Thank you for this book J.K.Rowling. This was a wonderful read!