The Cursed Child Review

Contains spoilers!!!

Totally behind everybody in reading The Cursed Child, but I told myself I had to finish rereading the first seven before I was allowed to read Cursed Child and I'm really glad I stuck to that. I even went to the midnight release for the book at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, which was apparently the largest party in the country! Over 2,200 people were there! Alrighty, onto the review!

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as many of you know is a new story by John Tiffany, Jack Thorne and J.K. Rowling that comes after the epilogue in Deathly Hallows. The main characters are Albus Potter, Ginny and Harry's son, and Scorpius Malfoy, Draco and Astoria's son. It's largely about the struggle of being the Slytherin son of the infamous boy-who-lived and how their's a rumor that Scorpius is actually Voldemort's son.

Okay, so this was just very mediocre in my mind. I love Harry Potter probably more than anything, it was what made me love reading and the world of Harry Potter is honestly sacred in my mind. It's why I didn't like Rainbow Rowell's Carry On, it was just a knock-off version of Harry Potter. I can see the thought process of the story for Cursed Child, being the son of Harry would be hard and trying to change things for the better is believable. However, this is not a Harry Potter book in my opinion. The script version is too short and jumps around. There are many plot holes and it definitely didn't have the same sort of whimsy magical feel that the original books do. The feel just doesn't match up.

The reason I didn't hate this was that I ended up reading it like it was fanfiction. It seriously felt like I could just find this on fanfiction.net and it was somebody's version of the next generation. I am not taking this as canon. I was satisfied with the original end and I'm sticking with that because that's how it was originally meant to be. I read the epilogue literally right before I started Cursed Child and I saw how they tried to make them overlap and pick up right after Deathly Hallows left off. Yet, this allowed me to see the flaws too easily and how they changed the wording and added stuff. If J.K. Rowling intended there to be a rumor about Scorpius, she would have put it into the original epilogue. Which is why Cursed Child isn't canon in my mind.

I see why a lot of people didn't like Cursed Child, Harry telling his son he sometimes wishes Albus wasn't his son isn't like him at all. However, we all know Harry had a bit of a temper and this wasn't him saying this because Albus was in Slytherin, they had other issues. I think the people who hated this book are taking this as canon and are feeling betrayed and misled. However, I choose to not take this as law. I feel like this was just another fanfiction story that I've read and I'm able to move on from it with the original books still untouched and solid in my mind.

I get that J.K. Rowling was supposed to have helped with writing this and if she really did, I'm disappointed. You never know though, because she might have had barely anything to really do with it and just stuck her name on it. It does say it's based off of a story by her, which doesn't elaborate what that original story really was and how much was thrown away or kept.

As a fanfiction, this was very average. I gave it four out of five stars, because it's still Harry Potter and seeing my favorite characters again always makes my heart twinge.

Sorry I just rambled on in this review, I just like to write as I think and it probably just jumped around a lot. These are my thoughts though and I hope people can see that we don't have to take this as canon and can enjoy it in other ways!

The Raven Boys Review

4 out 5 Stars!

Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys is about a girl named Blue whose grown up surrounded by psychics and every one has told her that if she kisses her true love, he'll die. Thus, being a very sensible girl Blue has decided she'll never fall in love. Except on St. Mark's Eve she sees a soon-to-be dead spirit even though she's not supposed to and the reason for it is that he's either her true love or she'll be the one to kill him within the next year. Suddenly she's thrown into a hunt for the truth to a myth with a group of Aglionby boys, also known as Raven Boys.

The amount of times I've been told to read this series is insane and I finally decided to do it! I thought Scorpio Races was awesome but I've heard differing things about Shiver so I knew The Raven Cycle was a series I'd get to eventually, but there's so many books to read and so little time!

I thought The Raven Boys was an interesting mix of the paranormal and mythology. I don't think they one hundred percent connect so it kind of felt like two different stories. I'm hoping in the next books they'll weave a little better. I thought the book was going to be predictable at first, but there were soon a couple twists that then made me doubt all my predictions.

I loved Blue's character. She's a mostly average girl in a house full of psychics and so she tries her hardest to be unique and different. She also feels a little uncomfortable with romance after being told her entire life that if she kisses her true love, he'll die. I just found this so relatable, because it's awkward when you don't know how to act in a situation and I think just like Blue when I don't know how to act.

I find Gansey a little annoying with how obsessed he is about finding Glendower and how blind he is sometimes. I do see like the other characters do that he never means offense, but I don't think he would be able to keep me around. I just don't have the patience to be with somebody like Gansey who is so fixated on the idea of something that he can talk about little else. Also, I'm still a little confused as to why he feels the desperate need to find Glendower. Is it to wish he's not deathly allergic to bee stings anymore? I understand how dire it is since he'll die if he's stung, but going on an insane hunt for some mythical king seems like extraordinary measures and definitely nowhere close to somebody's first thought. I don't know, I just couldn't connect to Gansey's quest.

I think Ronan is super interesting though and I really look forward to seeing him develop more! Chainsaw has definitely become my favorite character though.

All in all, I thought this first book was good. I almost never fall in love with the first book in a series though, as I usually wait to see if the potential holds up. So, my opinion can very easily go up or down and I look forward to seeing how that goes!