Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two by Jack Thorne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a really interesting read for me, and one that I think I will have to read many times over because I grasp the full complexities of the storyline and see beyond some of the things that are still sticking with me - good and bad. I also feel like much of it will make more sense to me once I see the play itself, though so much of it I could already picture in my mind!

I've generally come away with mixed emotions about this title and I think there are a lot of reasons for this. Harry Potter was so dear to me and so instrumental in my reading when I was growing up that coming back to it this many years later as an adult was always going to give me a whole new perspective. When I read the books I was the age of those characters and so I could understand the teenage angst and I could relate it to my own life, despite the magical setting. That was the charm of those books and the way that it allowed you to read them and escape in whole new ways. Although the characters we know and love are adults now (sort of anyway, there were moments that made me raise my eyebrows) a large portion of the play is spent with Albus and Scorpius who are teenagers. Once I realised that they were the central focus it did give me pause.

So lets start with the good. My worries about reading these teenagers (and the tendency for angst in the Harry Potter teenage world) was actually unfounded. Yes Albus had a lot of issues going on, which led to a lot of poor decisions BUT I felt in his case it was totally understandable. This was not the boy/girl love drama of the books, but actual insight into how it must be trying to handle growing up with a father who is as notorious as Harry Potter. Of course you're going to feel like you can't live up to that. Who could? And Scorpius quickly became a favourite character of mine in the whole series, which isn't something I would say lightly considering how little time he's had in the canon, but he was just a delight to read. He reminded me of myself at that age a startling amount and so when he stood up for himself (in a way that I was never able to) I found myself cheering... on my packed train.

I loved that Hermione has become The Minister of Magic - perfect job for her. I think it's only right that a Muggle born takes that job, because they can see both sides of the coin and negotiate with the Prime Minister effectively. Also Hermione kicks ass. End of. Her and Ron's relationship was beautiful. It took everything I like about them in the books and made me see it as something actually sustainable and highlighted how much the pair of them needed each other. In my personal opinion this play shuts down the Harry/Hermione argument because of how brilliantly the Ron/Hermione marriage is portrayed. Bravo to that.

In contrast I felt that the Harry/Ginny relationship was weak - and I acknowledge this could be a very unpopular opinion, but I have been careful to stay away from other reviews on the script so I don't know. It was just that I never felt like they gelled. I can't imagine it would be easy being married to Harry Potter, and lord knows he was a bit of a mess in this story, and yet I found myself wanting to push Ginny into supporting him more. The man clearly needs some sort of PTSD therapy. He went through a lot of things that really nobody could understand.

I also felt that many of the cameos from characters (Snape... Dumbledore's portrait) were more nods to fanfiction than true to the characters. As a Snape fan from book one I feel like I have a very realistic view of him. I never romanticized him and some of the terrible things he did. This play does and I don't know how I feel about that. He isn't hugely noble, he was trying to survive and live with himself after having made terrible decisions in his life that left him twisted and hurt in a way that nobody could heal.

There are other moments that made me frown a little that I don't want to dissect too much, because I do think that upon further readings they will bother me less and in truth I cannot deny that I loved travelling back to Hogwarts for a fresh story. It felt like a piece of me that had been shut away many years ago had the ability to come out and shine again. I shut myself up in my room and devoured it the way that I have always done. And that, for me, is what reading is all about. Losing yourself in the words, the characters, the world and most importantly the emotions that run through you every time you open the cover.

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