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lydderbox's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
devonforest's review against another edition
5.0
Lots of thoughts on this and I'll keep it spoiler free. Was the original series better? Yes. Would this be better in novel form? Yes. Would it be better to see the actual play? Yes. Did I know all this going in? Yes.
I honestly really enjoyed this. I can see where to some people it might seem like fan-fiction. But I feel like no matter what people were going to have issues with this book. This wasn't supposed to focus on Harry, this was Albus's story. It was great finding out and learning about new characters. I'd love to see the actual play, but this is a great alternative for not being able to afford to jet off to London to see it (as much as I want to). But for what it was supposed to be it was great and I loved it! This wasn't meant to be some great continuation of the Harry Potter series, this was meant as an insight into the future (or present however you want to look at it) of Harry's life.
This carries a lot of the same themes as the original series over to the younger generation of wizards. I really got into the story and finished it in 2 days. And maybe I'm biased and will always love anything Harry Potter related or that JK does, but I really enjoyed it. Sometimes I think people are over critical.
Magic never ends.
I honestly really enjoyed this. I can see where to some people it might seem like fan-fiction. But I feel like no matter what people were going to have issues with this book. This wasn't supposed to focus on Harry, this was Albus's story. It was great finding out and learning about new characters. I'd love to see the actual play, but this is a great alternative for not being able to afford to jet off to London to see it (as much as I want to). But for what it was supposed to be it was great and I loved it! This wasn't meant to be some great continuation of the Harry Potter series, this was meant as an insight into the future (or present however you want to look at it) of Harry's life.
This carries a lot of the same themes as the original series over to the younger generation of wizards. I really got into the story and finished it in 2 days. And maybe I'm biased and will always love anything Harry Potter related or that JK does, but I really enjoyed it. Sometimes I think people are over critical.
Magic never ends.
crickedcactus's review against another edition
5.0
I was a bit scared when I started it cause I know a lot of fans had been disappointment. Maybe because of my low expectations, I enjoyed it thoughtfully. I get how it can be disappointing, it is very different from the books, and it obviously hasn't been written by Rowling, but for me it brought the characters back to life.
aceinit's review against another edition
1.0
SPOILERS for pretty much every single major plot point of the book shall abound here.
I shall repeat: here there be spoilers.
SPOILERS FOR ALL THE THINGS.
Read at your own risk.
I really don't have the kind of words needed to describe how atrocious this read was. I'm trying, but it mostly involves a lot of four-letter words and huffing and growling and ranting about how this book should never have been created.
Never been created, you say?
Never been created, I repeat.
It's that bad.
I was told once by a professor that when offering up a review of a piece of work once finds utterly abhorrent, one should still note at least one piece of praise. So, in honor of that lesson, I shall start by offering up a handful of things that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child got right:
1.) Draco Malfoy as a caring, compassionate A+ single parent.
2.) Scorpius Malfoy, who is an awkward, adorable teen trying to find his place in the world and escape from dark rumors surrounding his paternity.
3.) The stage directions are fascinating. Given how rapidly the scenes change from unrelated location to unrelated location and how much magic flies around in the directions, I'm sure that the play is a visual delight. I almost want to see it just to see how the cast and crew pull everything off.
4.) Harry saying “I’ve never fought alone, you see. And I never will.” It is the only moment in the play where the series conjures up a hint of the orignal’s majesty, and it is over all too quickly.
Now, on to what it got wrong:
1.) Literally every single other thing included in the story.
I would elaborate, and I want to, but I feel like elaboration is going to make me ragey, so I'm going to stick to bullet points and give the rundown.
Again
SPOILERS
1.) Shitty Dad & Husband Harry. This is by far the worst crime the book commits. Shitty Dad Harry who commits one of the worst parenting sins by saying he wishes his son, the still horrifically-named Albus Severus, had never been born. Who says this TO HIS SON, and who is so consistently heavy-handed in his parenting that it's like he forgot what it was like to live under the Dursley regime. And the writers' explanation for this is that Harry never had strong positive father figures? Total bullshit. Because, obviously, Harry never had Lupin or Sirius or Hagrid or a whole host of decent male role models to look up to ever. Nor did he have years of experience at the hands of terrible guardians to teach him firsthand how not to behave. These things are irrelevant.
Harry is also constantly sniping at his wife, Ginny, who has conveniently had her backbone removed and who just rolls over and takes it. She even offers up sympathy because apparently being Harry Potter means you get to get away with being a dick to the people you are supposed to love the most, so long as you say you’re sorry afterwards.
2.) Ron being shoved to the backburner as nothing more than comic relief. That is his role here. The writers (and I use the word writers because this is not solely a Rowling work), had no real understanding of his character other than as Friend of Harry and Husband of Hermione, and had no clue how to write him as anything other than these roles. Or maybe they just didn't have room to do anything with him due to the....
3.) Absolute over-saturation of characters from the original series (including those who were dead). This book absolutely drowns in familiar faces, most of whom seem to drift on an off stage for no other reason than to evoke nostalgia. I don't mind seeing familiar faces. At first, it was a real delight. But somewhere along the way, that feeling disappeared and was replaced by an absolute certainty that the writers believed this was the way to reader/viewer hearts, because nostalgia obviously equals quality. Through the magic of time-travel, most of the characters who we revisit were killed off in the original series, including but by no means limited to, Dumbledore, Snape, Cedric Diggory, James and Lily Potter (Harry's parents, not his mostly-absent kids), and, of course, a certain dark lord who Shall Not Be Named. Because, again, better to revisit what worked the first time than to try something new. All of which might have sat bit a better if the writers hadn't also been so damned insistent on...
4.) The determination to make Snape and Dumbledore good people. Both Rowling and the other writers are going to milk that "always" linefor all its worth, in effort to redeem Snape and make him heroic because of The Depths of His Sacrifice, and never mind that he spent seven books being consistently horrible to children. But no, Snape is back and OF COURSE Snape is a good guy here, the reasons for which I am not going to go into just yet because that needs a whole bullet point to itself.
Dumbledore is cast into the same boat, pleading with an adult Harry to understand why he left Harry at Privet Drive for so long, and why he sent children into battle largely unprepared to fight an adult's war. Dumbledore and Harry are so moved by these memories that they are both openly weeping at the joy and emotion of finally understanding one another fully. Because neither Snape nor Dumbledore were master manipulators who were more than willing to use children as pawns (or be shitty to them in general), they were Totally Compassionate Characters Who Totally Deserve Our Love and Sympathy, guys. Which brings me to...
5.) Time travel. It's everywhere. The entire plot of the play centers around a recovered Time Turner that can send its user back decades in time, and the disastrous things that happen when Albus and Scorpius decide to use it to travel back to the Triwizard Tournament and change the past. As the play unfolds, we are presented with a variety of alternate futures, one of which becomes our focus as all of our heroes' noble efforts are put into preventing it from coming to pass. Which is fine. Well, it's really not because, again, there's so damned much of time travel that I thought I was reading an X-Men comic, but I'm willing to overlook it. What I can't overlook, however, is how flimsy the writers' logic is, particularly when, trapped in an alternate past where Voldemort was victorious at the Battle of Hogwarts, Scorpius must convince Snape to aid him in both unscrewing the timeline and returning to his own.
Which brings me back to Snape, as much as I would much rather not have to think about him. Snape. Snape, who, in both timelines, was a deep undercover agent of the Order. Who risked everything to bring down the world's most powerful dark wizard who, in this timeline, happens to be running things. Snape, whose life hangs in the balance each day and who is doing an even more heroic thing in the Voldemort timeline than in his own. (I am hailing Snape as a hero. I hate myself). So why, then, does he magically decide to trust Scorpius after the kid tells Snape that Harry named his kid after Snape, and that he knows Snape was totally in love with Lily? Why does Snape, whose very existence demands caution and secrecy, buy the logic that OF COURSE this kid is on the level and OF COURSE he is telling the truth and OF COURSE he is from the future because OF COURSE these are the only possible ways Scorpius would know about Lily and OF COURSE this random kid he's never seen before would have no reason whatsoever to try to deceive or expose him? Snape is an idiot for going along with this strange kid and so quickly deciding to advance the plot. It makes no sense for him to compromise his undercover existence so readily.
6.) Further Time Travel. Because OF COURSE one meddlesome super-potent Time Turner isn't enough. You have to have two. Both of which had been hidden from the Ministry of Magic for all this time.
It's interesting to watch how writers escape from a corner they have so obviously written themselves into. After destroying the first Time Turner, they realized they didn't really have a way to set things right and get our intrepid heroes back to their own time. So OF COURSE Lucius Malfoy had been hoarding a second super secret Time Turner for all these years for no easily explicable reason whatsoever, and OF COURSE Draco happens to produce it just when all seems lost. And it’s even better than the original Time Tuner that got us all into this mess because they’re Malfoys and it's all gold and shiny and expensive so OF COURSE it's better!
But wait! We can’t actually use it (yet) because that might be too dangerous! Because that would be too easy and seem like an obvious cop-out. So instead the book/play invents an even more ridiculous way to set things right while also creating a thoroughly ridiculous way for Albus and Harry to bond and move towards reconciliation. Okay, now we can totally use the Time Turner. It’s cool now.
7.) Delphi and her whole reason for existing. The fact that the best plot device that could be had is OF COURSE Voldemort and Bellatrix had a kid to further his dark legacy (and, you know, if need by time travel back to the past and change history) and OF COURSE she wants to bond with her daddy. Wwwwwwwwhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyy? *bangs head on desk repeatedly.*
8.) The play does not have the decency to throw us one tiny little bone of goodwill by making Albus and Scorpius openly in love. Instead, all we get is hints to get our hopes up, then a sudden and inexplicable overabundance of Scorpius pining for Rose Weasley, who has done nothing but treat him like dirt on her shoe.
Albus and Scorpius are two kids who have a deep and sincere affection for one another, and who are devastated when Shitty Dad Harry forbids them to socialize with one another. How hard would it have been to take the next logical step in their story? Too hard, apparently. Heaven forbid we lose out in a few all-important dollars by having something as potentially controversial as an openly gay pairing. (*Insert frantic parents screaming “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” here*.)
9, and this one is utterly unforgivable.) Harry Potter travels back in time and is forced to watch helplessly as his parents are murdered. Because time has to be set right, and because what better way to bond with your son than through shared mutual trauma? You absolute fucking monsters. Couple this with the fact that Super!Powerful!Witch! Delphi sits by and meekly accepts that she has failed while everything she has worked to prevent plays out, and there is no reason whatsoever for this to have ever been included.
I am so angry unspeakably angry that this scene exists, given that it ultimately accomplishes nothing beyond shock value, and inflicts what is no doubt a new lifetime of utterly unnecessary trauma upon Harry and, to a lesser extent, his friends and family.
That book/play is so badly written. I can forgive a lot of things in a book, particularly one that features such beloved characters, but I cannot forgive bad writing, particularly bad writing that extorts and some of the most beloved characters from the past century in the name of a few more dollars.
Ultimately, this is what The Cursed Child does. There's nothing new here. This isn't a story that needed to be told. This isn't dynamic storytelling and original ideas and, to use a cliché, the magic of the original series. This is a money grab that twists and butchers familiar and beloved characters into caricatures of themselves, and which doesn't even give our new cast a new story to tell. Albus and Scorpius are left rehashing the adventures of their, parents, sometimes in the most literal meaning.
This is so bad, you guys.
This is so bad.
This is SO BAD.
And I regret having ever read it. And I regret that my love for the original series shines a little less brightly today because of the tarnish The Cursed Child casts on its legacy.
I shall repeat: here there be spoilers.
SPOILERS FOR ALL THE THINGS.
Read at your own risk.
I really don't have the kind of words needed to describe how atrocious this read was. I'm trying, but it mostly involves a lot of four-letter words and huffing and growling and ranting about how this book should never have been created.
Never been created, you say?
Never been created, I repeat.
It's that bad.
I was told once by a professor that when offering up a review of a piece of work once finds utterly abhorrent, one should still note at least one piece of praise. So, in honor of that lesson, I shall start by offering up a handful of things that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child got right:
1.) Draco Malfoy as a caring, compassionate A+ single parent.
2.) Scorpius Malfoy, who is an awkward, adorable teen trying to find his place in the world and escape from dark rumors surrounding his paternity.
3.) The stage directions are fascinating. Given how rapidly the scenes change from unrelated location to unrelated location and how much magic flies around in the directions, I'm sure that the play is a visual delight. I almost want to see it just to see how the cast and crew pull everything off.
4.) Harry saying “I’ve never fought alone, you see. And I never will.” It is the only moment in the play where the series conjures up a hint of the orignal’s majesty, and it is over all too quickly.
Now, on to what it got wrong:
1.) Literally every single other thing included in the story.
I would elaborate, and I want to, but I feel like elaboration is going to make me ragey, so I'm going to stick to bullet points and give the rundown.
Again
SPOILERS
1.) Shitty Dad & Husband Harry. This is by far the worst crime the book commits. Shitty Dad Harry who commits one of the worst parenting sins by saying he wishes his son, the still horrifically-named Albus Severus, had never been born. Who says this TO HIS SON, and who is so consistently heavy-handed in his parenting that it's like he forgot what it was like to live under the Dursley regime. And the writers' explanation for this is that Harry never had strong positive father figures? Total bullshit. Because, obviously, Harry never had Lupin or Sirius or Hagrid or a whole host of decent male role models to look up to ever. Nor did he have years of experience at the hands of terrible guardians to teach him firsthand how not to behave. These things are irrelevant.
Harry is also constantly sniping at his wife, Ginny, who has conveniently had her backbone removed and who just rolls over and takes it. She even offers up sympathy because apparently being Harry Potter means you get to get away with being a dick to the people you are supposed to love the most, so long as you say you’re sorry afterwards.
2.) Ron being shoved to the backburner as nothing more than comic relief. That is his role here. The writers (and I use the word writers because this is not solely a Rowling work), had no real understanding of his character other than as Friend of Harry and Husband of Hermione, and had no clue how to write him as anything other than these roles. Or maybe they just didn't have room to do anything with him due to the....
3.) Absolute over-saturation of characters from the original series (including those who were dead). This book absolutely drowns in familiar faces, most of whom seem to drift on an off stage for no other reason than to evoke nostalgia. I don't mind seeing familiar faces. At first, it was a real delight. But somewhere along the way, that feeling disappeared and was replaced by an absolute certainty that the writers believed this was the way to reader/viewer hearts, because nostalgia obviously equals quality. Through the magic of time-travel, most of the characters who we revisit were killed off in the original series, including but by no means limited to, Dumbledore, Snape, Cedric Diggory, James and Lily Potter (Harry's parents, not his mostly-absent kids), and, of course, a certain dark lord who Shall Not Be Named. Because, again, better to revisit what worked the first time than to try something new. All of which might have sat bit a better if the writers hadn't also been so damned insistent on...
4.) The determination to make Snape and Dumbledore good people. Both Rowling and the other writers are going to milk that "always" linefor all its worth, in effort to redeem Snape and make him heroic because of The Depths of His Sacrifice, and never mind that he spent seven books being consistently horrible to children. But no, Snape is back and OF COURSE Snape is a good guy here, the reasons for which I am not going to go into just yet because that needs a whole bullet point to itself.
Dumbledore is cast into the same boat, pleading with an adult Harry to understand why he left Harry at Privet Drive for so long, and why he sent children into battle largely unprepared to fight an adult's war. Dumbledore and Harry are so moved by these memories that they are both openly weeping at the joy and emotion of finally understanding one another fully. Because neither Snape nor Dumbledore were master manipulators who were more than willing to use children as pawns (or be shitty to them in general), they were Totally Compassionate Characters Who Totally Deserve Our Love and Sympathy, guys. Which brings me to...
5.) Time travel. It's everywhere. The entire plot of the play centers around a recovered Time Turner that can send its user back decades in time, and the disastrous things that happen when Albus and Scorpius decide to use it to travel back to the Triwizard Tournament and change the past. As the play unfolds, we are presented with a variety of alternate futures, one of which becomes our focus as all of our heroes' noble efforts are put into preventing it from coming to pass. Which is fine. Well, it's really not because, again, there's so damned much of time travel that I thought I was reading an X-Men comic, but I'm willing to overlook it. What I can't overlook, however, is how flimsy the writers' logic is, particularly when, trapped in an alternate past where Voldemort was victorious at the Battle of Hogwarts, Scorpius must convince Snape to aid him in both unscrewing the timeline and returning to his own.
Which brings me back to Snape, as much as I would much rather not have to think about him. Snape. Snape, who, in both timelines, was a deep undercover agent of the Order. Who risked everything to bring down the world's most powerful dark wizard who, in this timeline, happens to be running things. Snape, whose life hangs in the balance each day and who is doing an even more heroic thing in the Voldemort timeline than in his own. (I am hailing Snape as a hero. I hate myself). So why, then, does he magically decide to trust Scorpius after the kid tells Snape that Harry named his kid after Snape, and that he knows Snape was totally in love with Lily? Why does Snape, whose very existence demands caution and secrecy, buy the logic that OF COURSE this kid is on the level and OF COURSE he is telling the truth and OF COURSE he is from the future because OF COURSE these are the only possible ways Scorpius would know about Lily and OF COURSE this random kid he's never seen before would have no reason whatsoever to try to deceive or expose him? Snape is an idiot for going along with this strange kid and so quickly deciding to advance the plot. It makes no sense for him to compromise his undercover existence so readily.
6.) Further Time Travel. Because OF COURSE one meddlesome super-potent Time Turner isn't enough. You have to have two. Both of which had been hidden from the Ministry of Magic for all this time.
It's interesting to watch how writers escape from a corner they have so obviously written themselves into. After destroying the first Time Turner, they realized they didn't really have a way to set things right and get our intrepid heroes back to their own time. So OF COURSE Lucius Malfoy had been hoarding a second super secret Time Turner for all these years for no easily explicable reason whatsoever, and OF COURSE Draco happens to produce it just when all seems lost. And it’s even better than the original Time Tuner that got us all into this mess because they’re Malfoys and it's all gold and shiny and expensive so OF COURSE it's better!
But wait! We can’t actually use it (yet) because that might be too dangerous! Because that would be too easy and seem like an obvious cop-out. So instead the book/play invents an even more ridiculous way to set things right while also creating a thoroughly ridiculous way for Albus and Harry to bond and move towards reconciliation. Okay, now we can totally use the Time Turner. It’s cool now.
7.) Delphi and her whole reason for existing. The fact that the best plot device that could be had is OF COURSE Voldemort and Bellatrix had a kid to further his dark legacy (and, you know, if need by time travel back to the past and change history) and OF COURSE she wants to bond with her daddy. Wwwwwwwwhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyy? *bangs head on desk repeatedly.*
8.) The play does not have the decency to throw us one tiny little bone of goodwill by making Albus and Scorpius openly in love. Instead, all we get is hints to get our hopes up, then a sudden and inexplicable overabundance of Scorpius pining for Rose Weasley, who has done nothing but treat him like dirt on her shoe.
Albus and Scorpius are two kids who have a deep and sincere affection for one another, and who are devastated when Shitty Dad Harry forbids them to socialize with one another. How hard would it have been to take the next logical step in their story? Too hard, apparently. Heaven forbid we lose out in a few all-important dollars by having something as potentially controversial as an openly gay pairing. (*Insert frantic parents screaming “THINK OF THE CHILDREN!” here*.)
9, and this one is utterly unforgivable.) Harry Potter travels back in time and is forced to watch helplessly as his parents are murdered. Because time has to be set right, and because what better way to bond with your son than through shared mutual trauma? You absolute fucking monsters. Couple this with the fact that Super!Powerful!Witch! Delphi sits by and meekly accepts that she has failed while everything she has worked to prevent plays out, and there is no reason whatsoever for this to have ever been included.
I am so angry unspeakably angry that this scene exists, given that it ultimately accomplishes nothing beyond shock value, and inflicts what is no doubt a new lifetime of utterly unnecessary trauma upon Harry and, to a lesser extent, his friends and family.
That book/play is so badly written. I can forgive a lot of things in a book, particularly one that features such beloved characters, but I cannot forgive bad writing, particularly bad writing that extorts and some of the most beloved characters from the past century in the name of a few more dollars.
Ultimately, this is what The Cursed Child does. There's nothing new here. This isn't a story that needed to be told. This isn't dynamic storytelling and original ideas and, to use a cliché, the magic of the original series. This is a money grab that twists and butchers familiar and beloved characters into caricatures of themselves, and which doesn't even give our new cast a new story to tell. Albus and Scorpius are left rehashing the adventures of their, parents, sometimes in the most literal meaning.
This is so bad, you guys.
This is so bad.
This is SO BAD.
And I regret having ever read it. And I regret that my love for the original series shines a little less brightly today because of the tarnish The Cursed Child casts on its legacy.
raedanni's review against another edition
2.0
I feel really emotionally manipulated by this whole thing. It makes me so sad to give this two stars but that's really all I can give it.
lenaoknihach's review against another edition
3.0
Mám přečteného celého Pottera, takže jsem se teď s čistým svědomím mohla pustit do osmého dílu.
Hele, asi takhle. Pro fajnšmekry HP to byl určitě skvělý zážitek - setkat se po tolika letech opět s tou nejznámější hlavní trojicí, poznat jejich děti, vrátit se znovu do Bradavic. I já si to užila, ale už mi to přijde trochu takový vynucený, co by jako ještě vymysleli, aby toho Pottera oživili a vydělali na něm.
Scorpius byl ale skvělý. Nejskvělejší.
Hele, asi takhle. Pro fajnšmekry HP to byl určitě skvělý zážitek - setkat se po tolika letech opět s tou nejznámější hlavní trojicí, poznat jejich děti, vrátit se znovu do Bradavic. I já si to užila, ale už mi to přijde trochu takový vynucený, co by jako ještě vymysleli, aby toho Pottera oživili a vydělali na něm.
Scorpius byl ale skvělý. Nejskvělejší.
mcxhic's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
2.5
The plot twist does not make any sense to me and feels like fanfiction.
tommulhern's review against another edition
5.0
At first I had a really hard time with the structure of reading a play. It's been a long time since I've read a play but after the first few scenes the story came to life. I really enjoyed this and all true potter fans would as well.
I would love to see a whole spin off series with Potters and the Granger-Weasleys and there families. So good!
I would love to see a whole spin off series with Potters and the Granger-Weasleys and there families. So good!
shad0wm0ses's review against another edition
1.0
Poorly written fanfiction - an unnecessary 'addition' to the Harry Potter series
carebear200's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.5
Book made me sob