Book Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Ever since I first entered the Harry Potter world, I was taken by the sheer charm of it. I loved every minute of the journey. While I was terribly sad when it ended, I wasn’t dissatisfied.

The characters were incredibly developed. We saw them growing up, even if we did not actually grow up with them (people like me who read the series in a matter of weeks). We knew their flaws, we knew their greatness. And we’d seen them acquire these. I can’t stress this enough- we knew all the characters so deeply that we could have stated what they’ll do/say in a situation exactly.

There was no rush. The story spanned 7 years and Rowling took it forward at a brilliant pace. Everything was told as it was, clearly with details. As the storyline developed, the characters grew and developed and we came to identify with them. There were no “how is this possible?” or “that is too farfetched” or “where did that come from?” moments in the story. Every concept was superbly explained and executed.

The Harry Potter series had the perfect beginning and the perfect end. I’d accepted that everything had to end sometime and there was no point in dragging it forward mindlessly.

Where did this Cursed Child come from?

Yes, I know I’m guilty of defending this book when I first heard of it. For a while there, I forgot all the satisfaction of the series having the perfect end. I became greedy. I was hungry for more Potter world. I thought that anything JK Rowling approved of could never be anything less than perfect.

Boy, was I wrong.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a play. It is not a novel. It has not been written like a novel. I’m fine with reading scripts, but somehow this world doesn’t connect well with a script. I’m sure that watching the play in action would be a memorable experience. But reading it like a script? Not so much.

That is all fine, actually. What really realllyyyy bothered me was the lack of character and story development. Yeah okay, first year done, second year done, this done, that done…let’s move to the action directly.

The protagonists, Albus and Scorpius, are completely unknown to us. They are just thrown into the action. We aren’t given any sort of character sketch. We don’t know what goes on in their minds exactly, we don’t know their likes, their dislikes. Everything happens in a terrible rush.

That is still excusable, because they’re entirely new characters. But how could they mess with our original characters? How could they change the golden trio? How could they change Hagrid and Professor McGonagall? That is not acceptable.

Was it interesting? Yes.

Was it predictable? No.

Did it make sense? NO.

It seemed like a terrible what-could-have-happened fanfic. I’m sorry but that terrible use of Time Turners is just not acceptable. Did the writers not read PoA? Do they not know the basic rules of time travelling? How could Albus and Scorpius have changed everything? Yes, maybe it was done to “teach us a lesson”. But it seemed purely stupid to me.

And the villain. Voldemort was the best villain ever. We knew why he is like what he is. We knew about his childhood, we knew him deeply. In this “book”, they’ve Delphi. Do we know anything about her? No. We just know that somehow, suddenly, she is the villain and she is out to take revenge.

Delphi, the daughter of Voldemort and Bellatrix. Wow. I don’t even need to comment on that.

Yes, maybe a lot of people will love this play. They’ll cherish it and feel grateful for the story of the children. But the true Potterheads, the ones who truly grew up with Harry, Ron and Hermione will feel sad. They’ll feel sad about the state of the current magical world.

I do not regret reading this book, because the feeling of contentment I now have for the original series could not have been achieved otherwise.

Thank Dumbledore.

(What is UP with this??????)