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alobearI've been re-reading my old journal entries and the length and quality of my reviews has definitely gone down over time. There was also an article about writing good reviews in this month's Writing Magazine, so I have decided to start putting a bit more effort into these again.
However, my first review under the new regime is for the script of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which I read on a trip to and from Hounslow last Sunday (90 minutes there, 90 minutes back - book finished!), and I'm really not sure what to say about it.
Briefly, it's about Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy becoming friends at Hogwarts, and then getting embroiled in a ridiculous adventure involving a time turner and various attempts to change the past, with mostly disastrous results.
The book kept me interested the whole way through, and certainly made the interminable length of the Piccadilly line seem a lot shorter, so I must have been enjoying it. And there was quite a lot to recommend it. I loved seeing the main characters of the book series as adults, dealing with the problems of life in the working world and issues with parenting. And the presentation of the friendship between Albus and Scorpius was lovely (a million fanfics were born, I'm sure). Time travel stories are always problematical, because it never really makes sense, and the whole thing felt quite thin in some ways - but that, I think, has a lot to do with it being a script rather than a novel. I don't think it's fair to judge it purely on its textual merits, as I'm certain a great deal will be added by nuances of performance, setting and special effects (of which there will need to be many).
So, I guess the upshot is that it was fun to revisit the world of Harry Potter with a whole new story, and I'm still very much looking forward to seeing the play when we evetually get to go in April next year. I was wearing my Hufflepuff t-shirt at the cinema the other week (Badger pride!), and got into a conversation with the Slytherin manning the ice cream stand, who sold me my ticket. He got up at 3am on the day tickets first became available and so got to see the play on 30 June. He said, apart from one thing that happened near the end (which I couldn't obviously identify from reading the script), he thoroughly enjoyed it, so hopefully I will, too, even going in with prior knowledge of the plot (though I'll probably have forgotten most of it by then).
One thing in particular I've noticed from reading old journal entries is that I make a hell of a lot of typos, so I'm also going to try harder at actually reading things through before I post them (here's hoping I haven't missed any errors in this one!). And, it turns out, I actually did have quite a lot to say about this, so achievement unlocked, I think!
However, my first review under the new regime is for the script of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which I read on a trip to and from Hounslow last Sunday (90 minutes there, 90 minutes back - book finished!), and I'm really not sure what to say about it.
Briefly, it's about Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy becoming friends at Hogwarts, and then getting embroiled in a ridiculous adventure involving a time turner and various attempts to change the past, with mostly disastrous results.
The book kept me interested the whole way through, and certainly made the interminable length of the Piccadilly line seem a lot shorter, so I must have been enjoying it. And there was quite a lot to recommend it. I loved seeing the main characters of the book series as adults, dealing with the problems of life in the working world and issues with parenting. And the presentation of the friendship between Albus and Scorpius was lovely (a million fanfics were born, I'm sure). Time travel stories are always problematical, because it never really makes sense, and the whole thing felt quite thin in some ways - but that, I think, has a lot to do with it being a script rather than a novel. I don't think it's fair to judge it purely on its textual merits, as I'm certain a great deal will be added by nuances of performance, setting and special effects (of which there will need to be many).
So, I guess the upshot is that it was fun to revisit the world of Harry Potter with a whole new story, and I'm still very much looking forward to seeing the play when we evetually get to go in April next year. I was wearing my Hufflepuff t-shirt at the cinema the other week (Badger pride!), and got into a conversation with the Slytherin manning the ice cream stand, who sold me my ticket. He got up at 3am on the day tickets first became available and so got to see the play on 30 June. He said, apart from one thing that happened near the end (which I couldn't obviously identify from reading the script), he thoroughly enjoyed it, so hopefully I will, too, even going in with prior knowledge of the plot (though I'll probably have forgotten most of it by then).
One thing in particular I've noticed from reading old journal entries is that I make a hell of a lot of typos, so I'm also going to try harder at actually reading things through before I post them (here's hoping I haven't missed any errors in this one!). And, it turns out, I actually did have quite a lot to say about this, so achievement unlocked, I think!
