“In every shining moment of happiness is that drop of poison: the knowledge that pain will come again. Be honest to those you love, show your pain. To suffer is as human as to breathe.” 

Much like every other person born in the 90s, I was bouncing off the walls on July 31st. Why? The eighth installment of the Harry Potter franchise hit bookshelves, coinciding with it's official opening night in the West End. Boy oh boy, was I excited. Resigned to the fact that I would have to sell an organ in order to buy a ticket to see the Cursed Child live, £10 on a hardback copy of the script was the next best thing. If you haven't already guessed, The Cursed Child was (in my eyes) the perfect end to the Harry Potter series, an end that was full of surprises. Surprises I promise not to spoil during this review!

I suppose we should first acknowledge the elephant in the room, JK Rowling did not write the script, she simply provided the original story which Jack Thorne magicked into a play. Some readers have argued that the play is therefore not truly Harry Potter at all, but simply inspired by the series. That's simply not the case in my eyes. An original story written by Rowling herself is good enough for me, especially as parts of the play contains dialogue directly lifted from previous books and films. There is certainly a clear continuation of story-line and in some respects writing style.

I'm not going to detail the story to you, as I'm very aware that there are some of you waiting to read the book/see the play for yourselves on stage. However, I can tell you now that it involves Harry and Draco's children, Cedric Diggory and Hogwarts. Vague enough for you? There are some huge surprises at every turn, but I was most impressed with the character development. Harry, Ron, Hermionie, Ginny and Draco all appear as adults - they have children, responsibilities, fears. They're simultaneously exactly as we left them after the Battle of Hogwarts, and completely different. 

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child ticked all the boxes for me. The story made sense, the characters were exactly as I imagined they would be 19 years on, and the constant throwbacks to pre- Battle of Hogwarts events were the icing on the cake. If you've travelled beside Harry and friends for all these years, it would be a shame for you not to pick this up and complete your journey.

Beth x