It's been 19 years since Harry, Ron, and Hermione fought Voldemort and won. Harry and Ginny now have three kids, with Harry working at the Ministry. His youngest, Albus, doesn't fit in. On the train to Hogwarts for his first year, Albus feels the pressure to make friends and finds another loner like him, Scorpius Malfoy. Scorpius is incredibly unlike his father and a breath of fresh air for that family. When Cedric Diggory's father shows up begging Harry to bring back his son by using a time turner, Albus decides to take this on himself. Him and Scorpius turn time back to different periods of the Triwizard Tournament to try and save Cedric.
This book is just a copy of the play, which makes it a pretty quick read because you're mostly reading just dialogue. I had a hard time picturing how this script would look on stage because it jumps back and forth between characters and locations a lot. It seems that this would be hard to put on stage because it would require lots of set changing. I'd be interested to see how this comes to fruition.
For the story, I really liked the different what if scenarios. Making small changes in the past can cause huge changes in the future, which we've seen play out in a lot of different movies and books but I enjoyed this take.
Where I was disappointed is in how our favourites have changed. I had no issues with Hermione; she's exactly what I expected. Ron however, I thought he had aspirations to become an Auror and work for the ministry. Instead, he's running a joke shop like his brothers (or his brother's joke shop?) and is a very shallow character. Then there's Harry, who was the biggest disappointment of them all. He is a horrible father and rather self-centred. He blames it on not having a father at the end of the book, which is a big cop out. I wasn't impressed Harry!
Despite the few character problems, it was still nice to get some new Harry Potter content.
First Line: "A busy and crowded station."
Rating:
(4/5)
In the third book of the Thursday Next series, Thursday is taking refuge in the well of lost plots, where unpublished novels live. She has people that want to kill her in the real world so staying safe in a book seems like a good plan. She only needs to fill in for a character a little, and tries to help the main character of the novel treat his wife better and stop being so stereotypical.
This is the third novel in the Cotton Malone series, bringing back many of the characters we met in the first two books. When Cotton sees that two men have broken in to the local museum, he follows them in and finds them spraying the museum with an unknown substance. The museum ignites and water won't put it out. Cotton finds his friend Cassiopeia close by and knows that she's involved somehow.
In 1565 Kyoto Japan, Hiro, a ninja, is sworn to protect foreign Jesuit Father Mateo. The foreigner doesn't completely understand the customs or culture of Japan so Hiro tries to help him with this and with translation. When a young kid comes to the two asking for help, they find a girl on a bridge, murdered. The girl happens to be Hiro's niece so together with Father Mateo, the two vow to find out what happened. Tensions are running high at this time in Kyoto with the police forbidding the investigation and different warlord vying for power. A threat is made on Father Mateo's life and Hiro has to decide whether the investigation for the Father is more important.
