Monday, December 26, 2016

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J K Rowling

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J K Rowling

I first saw this title while in Heathrow airport this summer, browsing through the bookstore before my transatlantic flight home.  A little boy explained to me that it was a play on the London stage.  His father bought him a copy to keep him occupied in their long flight.  I figured I could get it stateside and not have to lug it in my already souvenir filled carryon.  So I added it to my reading list.

I'm a Harry Potter fan but not so much of a fan that I would rush out to buy and read his latest installment on release day.  In Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Harry is grown up, married to Ginny with children of his own.  His son, Albus attends Hogwarts and the sorting hat has put him in Slytherin!  Horrors!  Thus the name "cursed child".  Hermione and Ron also have children at Hogwarts.  She has a high profile job at the Ministry and Ron is busy creating new jokes for the joke store.  Even Draco Malfoy gets in on the act when his son, Scorpius befriends Albus on the Hogwarts Express.

I found this story only ordinary, not exciting.  The young wizard gets into a bind when he finds it difficult to follow in his father's famous footsteps.  The father struggles to be a good role model to his son since he never knew his own.  And a wizard of the dark arts tries to trick them all in order to get something she wants. This play requires the reader to have a vivid imagination in order to recreate the places and people in Harry's young life since it is a script of the play, not a novel.  In the end, I found Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to be somewhat entertaining but very, very predictable.  

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