"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" based on a story by J.K. Rowling but written by Jack Thorne

Alright so this story has gotten a lot of press lately for being, well, another book about Harry Potter, but also many people are saying that it reads like fan-fiction.  And, I mean, duh of course it does. It’s the first book in the Harry Potter universe that’s a play, which is a huge difference just by itself.

Think about it: reading a book is really an experience. You get sucked into the place and feel like you’re with the characters on their adventures. Plays aren’t like that. They can be if you’re in the theatre, sure, but if you’re just reading them they definitely are not. And it’s hard to bridge that gap between the two, to write a play that feels like a novel. So the entire experience around reading this book is going to be entirely different than anything else in the Harry Potter universe.

And then there’s the fact that the characters we know and love have grown up. Now I consider J.K. Rowling to be a wonderful writer and an incredible creator of this universe. Since she is trying to make these characters believable, she made caused them to change slightly over the years. They are no longer the scruffy gang that we once knew, now Harry, Ron, and Hermione are parents and adults with actual jobs that don’t involve getting into tons of trouble all the time. They do not seem the same as their characters in the main series, nor would I want them to if I’m being honest.

But therein lies the rub, the whole reason why people loved the Harry Potter books so much was because of the characters and the world around them. Now that all of that has changed, there is not much left of the original story that we all know and love.

Don’t get me wrong, the writing leaves a little to be desired and the plot is somewhat cliché (although it does get better in part 2). I am pretty far from claiming that this is anywhere near as good as the original books.

But maybe we aren’t giving it enough of a chance, none of us has seen the play performed and the difference between seeing it live and reading it is huge. Within the theatre you can also get “sucked in” to the story and the characters, similar to reading a book.

So don’t completely give up on this play, you probably just aren’t experiencing it in the right way.