Monday 1 August 2016

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

wait what is this? joshua is no longer off hiatus?
that's right, reviews are back up every so often maybe?
expect a lot more than just reviews as well ;)
Info Dump:

Format: Hardcover
Page count: 352 pages
Publisher: Little Brown UK
ISBN: 0751565350
Synopsis:
It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.
While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

Review: (non/spoiler portions)

This novel. As the entire wait for this book has been shrouded in mystery I will be extremely vague as to the general plot as I would prefer that most would go into this novel without knowing much.
Nonetheless, this work of art is a long awaited continuation of the Harry Potter saga set 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts. Picture everything you imagined about this book and throw it out the window. This book throws you through so many plot twists and turns that had me biting my nails to their beds. In the short three hundred or so pages, I latched onto so many of the children of our original trio. Harry, Ron and Hermione have all grown up and seeing where they are now fills me with all of the happiness in the world. I would highly recommend all Potterheads to pick up this book immediately and devour it in one sitting.

Spoiler Section

For those who have consumed this novel, many can sympathise with me when I say that once the story is over, you feel deeply satisfied yet craving for more. I digress, first we shall start with the writing. Being a script book, the dialogue shared the majority of the pages meaning that it would take no longer than two whole hours to complete the majority of the novel. In saying this, there were many lines in italics that set up scenes and provided extra detail to deliverance, facial expressions and what would be happening in the West End. These snippets of italics tended to be extremely humourous, my personal favourite being 'dryer than dry' denoting Ginny's deliverance when addressing Harry and Draco's mini-fight. The plot was extremely fast paced which was refreshing after reading mutiple novels that seemed to drag for decades. In the few hundred pages so much happened I just UIHSAJDKNMEASFIJKM.
The timeturning had my mind spinning and noticing how this whole plot would be a lot better if time-turners hadn't existed... basically a Prisoner of Azkaban 2.0.
Oh yes, I adored Scorpius however I don't have too much to say about him besides that I thoroughly enjoyed Scorpius and Albus' relationship. Albus on the other hand I didn't appreciate too much. He reminded me of a typical angsty teenager with dad problems. He received depth through his ultimate character development however I felt that the majority of the novel was him sulking which I didn't enjoy very much.
The Delphi reveal was extremely interesting and sent the final few pages into a whirlwind of fast paced reading and pterodactyl screeching which, in hindsight, may not have been appropriate at 11 o' clock at night.
To conclude this review, I am extremely happy that this book exists and that all my precious children- I mean fictional characters are safe and have amazing lives beyond dementor soul sucking and the celebration of Voldemort Day.
Have a good one, J Woo.