Harry Potter and The Cursed Child by JK Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne *contains spoilers*

This review will be a little bit different due to the fact that Harry Potter and The Cursed Child is a script and not a novel. Thus, it will be difficult to critique it in the same way since it is mostly dialogue. Don't get me wrong, I love Shakespeare and a good play will garner a shining review from me any day, but this was not Shakespeare. I should have heeded my husband's warning and stayed far away.

When Harry Potter and The Cursed Child was announced my husband swore he would never read nor see the play because it was only based on Rowling's idea and not written by her. I defended the play saying that she would not have put her name to something she did not stand behind or believe in. Plus, if the ideas were hers and just written by someone else, what could be wrong? (I now remind myself that this is exactly what fan fiction is and that does not always turn out well.) After finishing the Harry Potter series I was dying for more and so I went out to purchase the play. I read it within two days. During that time I went from enjoying the play, to loving it, to absolutely hating it.

My biggest issue with the script was that it did not really answer as many questions as it presented. There was a lot of lacking description and, while I initially thought this was okay and chalked it up to the medium in which is was presented, in the end there was too much that I did not understand. One of the things I, and so many others, love about the Harry Potter series is that the world has logic. Everything in it makes a certain kind of sense and is explained fairly well. So to have various questions about the logic of the play come up and then never be explained, was very frustrating.

Some of these questions had to do with the massive amount of time jumping. There were inconsistencies with the time as well as how it all worked. I was wondering how all of this time jumping wasn't screwing up the minds of the people doing it. I was also frustrated by the portrayal of the old characters. Ron was made out to be some complete buffoon who only showed up for comic relief and had no real substance, which made his relationship with Hermione seem even weirder than it already was. Malfoy was believable and so was Hermione. Harry seemed overly whiny and heroic, more so than normal. There were odd moments where it felt like a Harry Potter novel and then even more odd and bigger moments where it felt like weird fan fiction. The sad thing is that I loved the two main characters of Albus and Scorpius. If Rowling herself wrote something about them I would definitely be up to read it.

Another disappointment was that the whole play focused on Cedric Diggory's death, which seemed like a weird focus. This was coupled with a strained father/son relationship between Harry and Albus which did not seem like a genuine problem and more a plot device. Not to mention the fact that Albus and Scorpius should have ended the play as boyfriends and then didn't, for reasons unbeknownst to me. And then there was the whole Voldemort having a daughter thing that was hardly explained at all and thus made no sense. Overall, it was a disappointing read.

If the play makes its way to America and I have a chance to see it, I will more than likely go. But do I see Harry Potter and The Cursed Child as true Harry Potter canon? No. If anything, it is a decent attempt at believable fan fiction that completely failed. Not only am I disappointed with the script overall, I am disappointed Rowling put her name to it. While her ideas may be fine, the interpretation of them did not do her world justice. I'd say skip this script and stick to the old Harry Potter books, that is where Rowling and her ideas shine brightest.