I did read the new Harry Potter book and have mixed feelings about it. It's a time travel story that takes place in the years starting right after the epilogue of the last HP novel. JK Rowling wrote the story that the play is based on. Some theater guy named Jack Thorne wrote the play and John Tiffany is the director. It's their play that is in the new book.
When I was reading the book I thought it was like reading a fan fiction both in format and story. A lot of the Harry Potter fan fiction is stripped down, just streams of dialog with play like descriptions for setting and scene. Many Fan fiction writers aren't content to try to write like JK and create stories in her world, they want to stamp their own style and thoughts into their stories. Sadly that often ruins the story.
I read a bunch of HP fan fiction and much of it was awful. And stuff with the different "ships" was often the worse. The meanest porn writing would be more entertaining than some of what I read. Or tried too, I stopped after a short while and haven't been back to the HP FF sites in years.
In Harry Potter And The Cursed Child some of the dialog is like something JK would write but often is just isn't. It makes me wish that I could read the story that JK wrote before Jack got his hands on it. Hard to know what he changed without seeing that story.
I'm not a believer in spoiler warnings but since this is so new, I'll only describe the barest bit of the story. Harry's son Albus is off to school where he gets put into Slytherin. He becomes the best friend of Draco Malfoy's son Scorpius. Albus feels alienated from his father and Harry can't communicate with his son. Scorpius isn't much better off over at his house. They need a friend and they find each other on the train to Hogwarts. Like Harry, Albus makes some decisions and uses a time turner to try to change the past. It's gets pretty messy and things get pretty awful before they get better.
I did like the story well enough but it seems like a weak sequel to the earlier work. It was sort of like being back in that world but it wasn't quite right. I see that there are reviews on Amazon saying the same thing, it's more like fan fiction, that I was. It's got it's fans, 39% of the votes are 5 Stars, and it's detractors, 22% of the votes are a 1. I think it's interesting that so many are disappointed, there are also 12% giving the book a 2 Star rating. I'd give it a 4, thinking it's better than a 3. By comparison 86% of the votes for Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone are 5 Star and only 1% of the votes are 1 Star.
I read through the thing pretty darn quickly and will have to read it again. I got lent a copy of the US to read, when the UK version comes, in a week or so, I might talk myself into read it again. Then again I might wait a while.
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