This year, July 31 marked what would be Harry Potter's thirty-sixth birthday – and author J.K. Rowling celebrated her fifty-first with the eighth and possibly final installment in the Potter series.
It should be noted that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child may disappoint fans who are resistant to change. After all, Harry himself feels like a supporting character at several points throughout the book, which instead focuses on his son, Albus Severus Potter. And this book lacks the writing style for which Rowling is so known for, instead relying on minimal stage directions to create a setting.
(Spoilers ahead.)
Some have commented, however, that Cursed Child reads more like a fanfiction than a continuation of Harry's story. Perhaps it's the return of characters that we thought dead, or the somewhat abrupt creation of unlikely new pairings within the story.
Conceptually, several characters seem twisted beyond recognition – take Cedric, for example, who had appeared to be a refreshingly valiant character who followed his moral compass, even when it would set him back. In "Cursed Child," we find out that one embarrassment in front of his class was enough to turn him into a Death Eater, which makes no sense canonically. It seems as though his character is being tarnished so he may serve as a mere plot device, which leaves the reader feeling vaguely uneasy, as though their previous knowledge of the Potterverse is being called into question.
Or take the fact that Voldemort and Bellatrix apparently had a secret daughter, though at no point in any other books in the series did they seem interested in each other in that way. (I mean, maybe Bellatrix did, but as Voldemort was born under the effect of a love potion, wasn't he supposed to be incapable of feeling love?)
(End of spoilers.)
Honestly, this book seemed to raise more questions than it answered. I thoroughly enjoyed that aspect of it, but I can see where the frustration of other readers may be coming from. And I definitely miss Rowling's characteristic prosaic style, and the intricate world which she created.
For me, though, this book was enjoyable because it evoked feelings of nostalgia for when I first opened a Harry Potter book, nearly ten years ago. The frequent flashbacks situated throughout the story are placed in somewhat different lights as the original scenes, but they certainly illustrate the future of a new generation of witches and wizards, while nodding to the earlier books.
According to Rowling, Harry is done, but even so, the spirit of magic and friendship that the series contained lives on in the hearts of millions – and this book effectively takes us back to when the magic began.
