Today (July 31) on Harry and J. K. Rowling’s birthday the new Harry Potter book (Book 8) came out: “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” Not a novel, but a screenplay of two plays: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One & Two and Harry Potter parties were once again held around the world as people counted down to Midnight. I was too tired to go to any Potter parties or stand in line for the book/play, as I have done in past years, plus its just so much easier to get it on my Kindle and start reading right away. And it certainly beats having to order them from the UK because they were not yet published here in the US, which is what I had to do with some of the earlier books, until they started to published the UK and US books simultaneously.
So at 11:01pm on July 30 I wondered if the book/play would download, as it was past Midnight in the UK and Midnight in New York City, so I looked and no book/play. But then at 11:22pm I noticed that the book/play was downloading (I later checked my bill from Amazon and it also said 11:22pm. Weird). So I am not sure if the ebook was on NYC time or not, but if I had been in the store I would have been still waiting. So another great thing about ebooks – you might get the book a bit early!
A quick read (I finished about 2:58am – so about a 3.5 hours to read), the play/book was wonderful and sad and happy and adorable and includes all the characters we have know and loved over the past 19 years, plus a few new ones. It nicely wraps up some of the ‘what if’ questions that have been lingering from the books and does a wonderful job of showing that Hermione and Ron were meant to be together and yes, I know that some have debated if they should have ended up together (including Rowling and Emma Watson), but I liked happy endings and the book/play does a good job of answering that question. The world is always a little bit better when there is a new Harry Potter book it in.
