Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Jack Thorne (based on a concept and the HP universe of J. K. Rowling)
ISBN: 9781338099133
Read August 1, 2016
Did I wait long enough to avoid spoiling those who don't want to be spoilt? If not, please skip to the next review!
First things first: yes it's short. Very short. It's not anything like the complexity and length of any of the later novels, and in tone it's actually a lot more like the first few books than the latter ones. I am sure that the talented acting and directing cast have added a lot more flavor and impact to the bare script in the actual play itself, but this is a review of the written script, and it's just a little on the flat side.
Good Things:
More Official Harry Potter story!
Scorpius.
Time Travel done not so horribly
Interesting worldbuilding grace-notes and lovely call-backs and nods to the books.
Serviceable and solid plotting and pacing.
Snape getting to be a hero!
Not So Good Things:
Flat Characters
Storyline and moral was trite and cliche
Limitations caused by format (unavoidable, but still present)
A bit too reliant on hitting those nostalgia notes: no new ground being tread here.
Very Bad Things:
Unfortunate treatment of ALL the women in the script. If it were one or two instances, or one or two characters, I would shrug it off, but it's ALL of them, in EVERY interaction, in EVERY bad cliche of womanhood there is. It was to the point that I was feeling sorry for the actresses trying to salvage their characters.
Was it fun to read? Absolutely.
Would I love to see it? Certainly. I can only hope they'll decide to produce a staged-filmed version, or perhaps to translate it to a movie or short BBC-style "season" of two or three long episodes.
Did I notice things that made me cringe a bit and like it less in the critical-evaluation sense? Yep.
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