HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD by J.K. Rowling and Jack Thorne (2016)

“The best bits of you are -- have always been -- heroic in really quiet ways.”

THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER-FREE

Disclaimer: This review is constructed upon my personal reaction to the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

My defining feature has always been my love of Harry Potter. It’s my opening line at parties: “Hi, I’m Sarah, I love Harry Potter”. Harry Potter is my thing, my pride and joy, the book series I would take with me if I were stranded on a desert island; I feel like a sham when I can’t remember a piece of Harry Potter trivia, and honestly, the last time I couldn’t remember a piece of Harry Potter trivia was probably about ten years ago. (It was last week. I’ve been trying to block it out of my memory.) My brother and I have Harry Potter quote-offs on long car rides. The only jewellery I own (that I regularly wear) is Harry Potter-related. I own three copies of The Philosopher’s Stone, my 18th birthday present was this edition of the boxset, and I plan on walking down the aisle to Hedwig’s theme. Not to brag or anything, but I’m pretty sure there is not a single person who ever has or ever could love Harry Potter more than me. It’s a very illicit love story, to say the least. Naturally, when Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was announced -- first as a stage play, then as a script book -- I was over the moon. I preordered the script book immediately, and when it finally arrived this morning (eleven days late, much to my disgust), I sat down and read this coveted continuation of my beloved Harry Potter world is one three-hour sitting (punctuated only by frantic, emotional Snapchats to my friend Kelsey, who probably laughed at me the entire time. God love her.). Only a week and a half after literally everyone else, I finally read The Cursed Child!

… and I didn’t like it that much?

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child reminded me of Go Set a Watchman. I defended the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird to my dying breath when I reviewed it last August, but in hindsight, what I really loved about it was the nostalgia it brought me and the themes it portrayed, not the actual storyline or content itself. The exact same applies to The Cursed Child. The play was definitely an…. emotional….. experience, and a big chunk of what I liked about it was getting to peek into the world I love so much from a new perspective, twenty-odd years since our last look into the Wizarding World. For me, a fundamentally nostalgic person, getting to see Harry, Ron, and Hermione as adults was especially moving. The themes of legacy and isolation and trying to find your own identity were also super interesting -- considering, ironically, the legacy The Cursed Child has to build on, I felt that the themes in the story established themselves really strongly. From the beginning, these things struck me about the play, and so I set off thinking I would be as fully impressed all the way through to the end.

But. But but but. While I genuinely did enjoy the reading experience, and while there were a lot of elements that I thought were incredibly well-done, I cannot honestly say that The Cursed Child is a faithful, or even a very good, continuation of the Harry Potter series. Now, I know it was written by a different person. I know all JK Rowling did was approve the script. That didn’t, however, stop me from going into the play hoping to find a perfectly executed sequel of the canonical world to which my entire life and soul are dedicated, and that didn’t stop me from being pretty disappointed -- and honestly, faintly offended -- when it wasn’t. In fact, in my head, the play has already almost completely alienated itself from the canon, which is kind of sad, because it is part of the canon, and I really want to naturally accept it into my perfect little Harry Potter world, but there was just so much going on that grated against what I know and love about the wizarding world. I read one review that called The Cursed Child “high-end fanfiction”, and at the time, I arrogantly brushed this off as complete rubbish, but I’ve since come to accept that epithet, because aside from the fact that “high-end fanfiction” is technically what The Cursed Child actually is, it’s also exactly what it felt like: high-end, not particularly faithful fanfiction written by someone who hadn’t read the books as many times as me. There were just so many tiny little errors that I picked up while reading, minor details that, to Jack Thorne, probably didn’t feel significant, and honestly really aren’t, but they just look so out of place against the backdrop of this familiar world. I also found a lot of the major plot points extremely far-fetched. Like, just completely and utterly ludicrous. There was one in particular that, after telling my mom about it, I just said, “No, it’s too stupid. I don’t buy it.” I couldn’t believe some of the things JK Rowling apparently approved. I’m not going to go into detail because I want to keep this spoiler-free, but Christine Riccio summed up pretty much all my thoughts on some of the ridiculous plot points in her book talk, if you want to get down and dirty with the details.

In the end, if I’m being completely honest, I did like The Cursed Child. It was fun and whimsical and often a little silly, but it was also really dark and spooky and heavy -- the sadder, more thematically gruesome parts of the book were definitely my favourites to read. Despite my mind telling me that it’s more of a 3-star book, I’m probably going to follow my heart and give it 4 stars, anyway, because my Harry Potter megafan heart just can’t stand to give it anything less. If there’s one thing I’ll give to The Cursed Child and Jack Thorne, it’s that the play feels very earnest. No matter how negligent to detail and faithfulness the play may feel to me, I do truly believe that Jack Thorne really and genuinely cared about creating this story and getting it (somewhat) right. Unlike Suicide Squad, which was already bad but felt even worse because I could tell how little Warner Brothers valued my attention (but that’s a rant for another time), The Cursed Child felt as if it cared about me, if that makes sense. It felt as if Jack Thorne knew that my attention is a valuable asset that he has to fight a million other things for, and this, at least, I admired about the play: it really was trying it’s best. Sometimes, however, trying your best is not enough.

(If you’re wondering where the ‘my attention is an invaluable asset’ spiel came from, it was inspired by this Bo Burnham skit. I know what you’re thinking: when does this bitch not quote Bo Burnham? To which my response is this: I’m predictable! Deal with it! At least I own that shit!)