Review written in 2016:
I went into this book with little to no expectations and honestly struggled to find bits in it to enjoy. My favorite part was the new characters- Scorpius and Albus. I was glad that both of them were different than their fathers, and enjoyed the arc of their friendship. There are some genuinely funny moments of dialog between the two of them, and Scorpius's obvious massive crush on his friend tickled my slash-driven heart.

HOWEVER. (There will be some spoilers following this. This is the warning.)
The whole plot of the book is RIDICULOUS.

The plot heavily revolves around time-travel, which is not a trope I generally enjoy. JKR did a good job with the limited scope of the Time Turner in book 3, but in this play the rules governing time travel are inexplicably completely different. Early on, in a very heavy handed scene, we are introduced to a rumor that Scorpius's mother was sent back in time via a Time Turner and that he is Voldemort's son. I HAVE SO MANY PROBLEMS WITH THAT, the main one being rape but the secondary one being that I don't think Voldemort cared about/would be capable of sex. He had no interest in having an heir, because he planned to live forever. Why would someone who wants to be eternal need a legacy? A bit later on, Albus witnesses Amos Diggory berating Harry Potter for the death of his son. For some reason this causes Albus to decide that he and Scorpius should break into the Ministry, steal a Time Turner and save Cedric Diggory. Why? Because Albus is an angsty teen burdened by this father's fame. Naturally.

Albus and Scorpius first travel one, then two layers away from their own time steam, fucking up the world more with each progressive change. It's like Back to the Future, but less charming. The only reason for this that I can fathom from a writings standpoint is that it allows our young heroes a chance to interact with characters who are dead. I will say that the scene between Snape and Scorpius was actually one of my favorite scenes, but it wasn't good enough to justify the huge amount of bullshit it took to get there.

The book also gets some really basic things wrong about magic usage in the Harry Potter universe. At one point a character offers to mix up a batch of Polyjuice Potion to be used immediately, but we all know that that potion takes a month to prepare. It's a small mistake, but a good example of why this book just doesn't FEEL like a real Harry Potter story. I've read fan fiction that did better.

Edited added in 2020: as of this year, I no longer plan to read any new book that JKR is involved with.

Cartoonist/math teacher/father of four Gene Yang has never liked sports, but he loves stories. He's never paid much attention to the basketball teams at O'Dowd, the private Catholic high school where he teaches, but when he starts hearing people call the men's varsity teams' aim for State Championship "the story of the season" his ears prick up. Yang begins talking to the team couch, Lou Richie, who is also an O'Dowd alumni. He begins attending games and practices and interviewing the players. He starts reading about the development of basketball- a sport specifically designed to use little equipment and only a small space, not needing a grassy field for play. These factors made basketball accessible in a way baseball and American football often are not. Yet racism and exclusion have haunted basketball as well, and Yang talks about early black teams such as the Harlem Globetrotters, the prejudice against women's basketball, the racism faced by the first Chinese players to join the NBA. Despite himself, Yang is draw into the O'Dowd Dragon's 2014/2015 season as they chase a State Championship which the school has missed out on eight different times. This is an engaging and informative story which left me (another cartoonist with lukewarm feelings on sports) with a greater appreciation for the game. I read this 450 page book in under 24 hours!

Not fully sure what to make of this story- I guess it didn't quite land with me, though the artwork is very nice. The story begins in when a young girl, Vijaya, is orphaned when attackers burn down her home village. She sets out into the snow alone and collapses. A mysterious figure sees her, and collects her into his arms. He speaks into the sky that he will trade his immortality for this child's life, and carries her into a hidden sanctuary in the mountains. In this valley the temperature is always warm and the forests and fields are full of elemental spirits. These spirits act as a kind of purifying force in the world, siphoning way fear and pain. Most of this bad energy is produced by humans whose hearts are clouded with illusion, causing them to become out of step with the natural world. The elementals are being overwhelmed by human pollution and greed, and come to the sanctuary to rest. Some of them think that the safety of the sanctuary is threatened by the presence of a human child. A huge amount of my ambivalence about this story was based on the author's decision to set it in a real part of the world, the Himalayas, rather than in a fantasy world. Did he do any research about this region, are the elementals based on actual myths from that area or are they completely made up...? Should my enjoyment of the story be based on the author having thoughtfully portrayed a region rather than just filling a "far away" part of the world with a fictional story? IDK, I don't really have answers, only questions.

As good as the previous books were, it now feels like we're getting to the real meat of the story. Karasuno is beginning the Inter-High Boys Volleyball Prefecture competitions and they are some familiar teams lined up against them right away. Date Tech, the team which creamed them so badly that two Karasuno players quit and had to be coaxed back, is their second match. If they survive that they will face Aoba Johsai, against whom they played a series of challenging practice matches. The jumps are high and so is the drama!

The art in this book is STUNNING. The gorgeously handled watercolors over penciled line art are wonderful, a style I really enjoy and would like to practice more myself. The story is a bit on the loose side, and falls into some tropes of a Western gaze on Japan and specifically Japanese ghost mythology. Based somewhat on a true story, two French tourists return to Niigata prefecture, a place they have stayed before, so have pre-established relationships with some of the townspeople. On a trip to a small town to see a local festival, they wander into a curious shop and are talked into buying a cheap camera which supposedly can take photos of Yokai- ghosts and other spirits. The rest of the book tells of various trips to different locations, attempting to catch supernatural creatures on the 8 pictures on the camera's roll of film. The narrative sometimes shifts abruptly, scenes being cut off without conclusion. There are multiple times that it's implied the Japanese people the tourists talk to ARE ghosts, in a human disguise. I wasn't bothered as much by the fragmented narrative as by the decision to portray all of the Japanese characters differently, with a much greater degree of realism, than the French characters. I think the authors might have been trying to honor the people they actually met (some of whose photos are included in the appendix) with realistic portraits, but it gives the book a weird tone.

A very delightful collection of 102 "essayettes" by poet, teacher, and enthusiastic gardener Ross Gay. He begins the project on his 42nd birthday when he decides to write about something that delights him everyday for a year. Well, some days get missed, and likely a few of the pieces were edited out, but the hundred and change which are included here are sweet, short, reflective, rambling, occasionally educational, and often very funny. Gay is the kind of man who will carry a tomato plant onto an airplane, to notice and appreciate little moments of kindness and acknowledgement between humans, who carefully observes the natural world and feels kindship with it. I recommend this as small anecdote to the year 2020.

Priya Parker is a consultant on and creator of the kind of gatherings that people remember for the rest of their lives. Her specialties include designing rituals to enter people into and gracefully release them from social spaces and helping people open up to the kind of rich, deep, vulnerable conversation that makes us feel seen and less alone. This book is woven through with dozens of delightful stories of gatherings from around the world, ranging from weddings, funerals, dinner parties, live theater, work conferences, international political negotiations to picnics out with friends. If you have a big gathering to plan in your own life, or are just interested in the subject of why humans gather and how to make gatherings meaningful I recommend this book. It hits especially hard in 2020, the year in which non of us can gather in person safely.