A review by annalie_rose
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two by J.K. Rowling

3.0

Being that I hold the Harry Potter books to be sacred, I have unnaturally high expectations for any extension of the series. However, the disappointment I experienced with the Cursed Child came from a specific relationship with the most important part of the Harry Potter series: the lifeblood, the characters. Though the play told a fun and enticing story of Harry’s experience as a parent and would be nostalgic and magical on stage, reading the words from the mouths of Harry, Ron, Dumbledore, Draco, Snape, etc. and knowing that those words would never come from their mouths generated a huge knot of discomfort. I understand a theme of disillusionment, but the characters of the Harry Potter series are too precious to readers for us to suddenly be torn in a completely different direction from the consistent characterizations of the series. I would hope that the play is brilliant on stage, but am afraid I was shaking my head all throughout my reading of the screenplay. I am going to consider it completely separate from the Harry Potter series and remember it as bad fanfiction.