Three and a half stars.

I preordered this book long before it came out. When there were issues with shipping from Amazon, I began hearing all of the backlash so I cancelled my order and requested it from the library instead. Because I had time to hear so much backlash and such, my expectations going into this were extremely low. Still, before I started reading, I made sure to get in the right mindset- totally open mind, not expecting much, etc.

Obviously, there were some issues.

It most definitely felt like a fan fiction more than a piece of work from J.K. Rowling. From time to time, I also felt that there were just so many things that were overlooked that this seemed almost like a rough draft, like it was very rushed. So I had issues with flow and the things just didn’t line up with the original series... They were all things that Rowling should have caught and fixed...Examples:

Using magic on Platform 9 3/4 in his third year- did they lower the age of magic outside of school grounds? Or does the platform count as school grounds?

Suddenly having Polyjuice potion available rather than taking the month to brew- Was that a mistake? Did potions improve so it was available faster? Why wasn’t that explained if so?

How they were in the library and then seemed to go straight to the girls bathroom, but suddenly Albus has Gillyweed…they must have made an off-stage stop. And Albus didn’t tell Scorpius what he was getting..?

Also, some of the dialogue wording seemed a little off, like there were words missing in some sentences.

There were also a handful of weird things that didn't line up with the characters. Like how simply Hermione hid an item that she knew was very dangerous in the wrong hands (she's brilliant, shouldn't she have hidden it better?!) I also really didn't like how Ron was portrayed the majority of the time... Sometimes he was good old goofy Ron, but others he seemed like too much of a doofus.

I also don’t understand the Part 1 and Part 2…was this play seen on two different days? The break between Part 1 and Part 2 doesn’t make sense…unless that marked the intermission of the play? But why title the book that way as well?

I straight up HATE that it is being called “Harry Potter Eight” “The Eighth Story”. Why couldn’t it just be a one off? Why did it have to be merged with the series? It’s not the same. If this was an actual novel that was fully written, I could see it being called book eight…but no. It’s a play and it was written by different people. It really seemed like Rowling only provided a weak outline.

All that said….I tried to take this as it was and not think to much about it. So overall, I actually really enjoyed this play! I believe that if I had read this when it first came out, my thoughts would have been a bit different. But I thought it was exciting, I enjoyed the characters (LOVED SCORPIUS!) , and I could really see the play coming to life. I wish I could have seen this preformed in London!

I would recommend this book, but I would urge readers to keep an open mind and go into like I did- with very low expectations.