I am going to see this play in May of 2024 in New York, so I decided I needed to read this book before seeing the performance. I love Harry Potter and reading this book was a different feel. I enjoyed this story and I am looking forward to seeing the performance. ( )

Having just finished the other 7 books, I found this one quite disappointing. I don't think it was the screenplay format that turned me off, more the lack of character development and the forced plot. It felt fairly flat with no "realness" to it. ( )

What this shows is you really shouldn't leave time turners laying around where 4th year Hogwarts students can steal them. Although the idea that Hermione Granger would be so incompetent as to fuck up the hiding of a time turner (if Hermione Granger didn't want two blockheaded teen boys finding the most powerfully dangerous item in the magical universe, they wouldn't find it, thank you very much) is but one of the glaring plot holes here.

Some people argue that play scripts should not be read by the casual reader; created to be a performing art, the script is necessarily a shadow of the richness of the whole thing. At the least we have to allow that reading this script is going to be inferior to seeing the play acted out on the stage. Reading a script is also going to be a fundamentally different reading experience than reading a modern novel, in inherently less promising ways.

This work then, existing in an lesser form from a reading point of view by its nature, and suffering from numerous plot weaknesses in addition, really should not be a very good read, and surely isn't for anyone who's not already a Harry Potter fan. Because I am such a fan of the books, I still mostly enjoyed this despite its faults, but to be real, it will likely remain outside the Potter Canon as a semi-successful curiosity. ( )

Okay, so, by the time I finished Part 1 of this book (about half of it), I was honestly considering just dropping it. I absolutely despised it and willingly tried to convince myself that it was not canon; that it was just some weird fan-fiction that J.K. Rowling produced for whatever reason. However, Part 2 actually turned out pretty good. I was thoroughly entertained by it, and the ending actually left me somewhat emotional. Crazy, right?

What I disliked most about this book was actually the dialogue. I found it atrociously awful, especially by Rowling's standards. The characters did not feel anywhere near as human or nuanced as they did in the previous 7 books. I found Scorpius Malfoy insufferable, and I thought Albus was an extremely unlikeable shit head. By the end, though, I thought Albus and Harry himself were well-written. The conversation they had in the final chapter was incredible. The themes of pertaining to parenthood, loss, and love were very interestingly explored. Rowling actually created a very interesting conflict for Harry to grapple with: raising his own son. It honestly made me kinda emotional seeing Harry Potter, the character whom we've read so much about for so long, build his relationship with his son and try to mend the many problems in it.

Another I don't like about this book is the pacing. Things move way too quickly. For as complex and multi-layered as this plot is, things move along way too quickly. As a result, not every character and plot element is given the time it deserves. Ron Weasley, one of the 3 most important characters of the entire freaking franchise, barely has anything interesting to do or say throughout this whole thing. Come on! He's Ron Weasley; he's not just some background character to be used solely for comic relief.

As I mentioned previously, I thought Part 1 was terrible. It has none of the positive things I've mentioned in this review, and it is exceedingly boring. I actually had to force myself to read it page by page because of how uninteresting I found it. Part 2, however, is miles better. I thought the conflicts were really interesting, and I really liked seeing the alternate, post-apocalyptic Wizarding World. I'm a massive fan of dark fantasy. Too bad it wasn't explored very much, but it was quite interesting reading about it nonetheless.

In conclusion, I'm somewhat mixed on this one. I don't think it's terrible, but I don't think it's really good either. It just sits somewhere in the middle for me. ( )

Pretty good fanfic! Like everyone else, including the coworker who lent it to me, I ship the heck out of Albus/Scorpio.

Dumbledore saying he was unworthy to love people was the only thing that made me cry. I know you can legitimately understand that statement as "wow, my first puppy love was in league with Hitler, that was kind of traumatic" but I can't help but read it as "I grew up a century ago and I spent most of my life closeted. My homophobic shame and self-loathing stunted all my relationships because I was always holding a part of myself back."

:( ( )