When I first heard the great JK Rowling was publishing another book, and it wasn't related to Harry Potter I vowed to myself I will never ever read that book until she cave in and write about the tragic love story between Rose Weasley and Scorpius Malfoy.
But somehow, I did get an ebook version of it and started reading it.
Reviews of it were in two camps, either they love it so much or claim that Rowling is a one-series wonder(a super rich one that is). It didn't really persuade me to pick up the book because I know I'll be reading it and thinking of how it should be in the HP world.
My advise? Do not expect another Harry Potter. Try to forget that its written by the woman richer than the Queen herself.
It has quite a complicated group of characters that I had to keep referring back to remember who was who.
Rowling weaved the characters together so tightly that by the time the climax part appeared, she just had to pull on the knot and everything slowly and surely unravel that the ending just comes like BOOM BOOM BOOM.
This book really showed the bad part of people. How sly, selfish, arrogant, racist, self absorbed etc people can be. There was one scene, near the end where a little boy of about 3-4 years old were wandering around a small park, crying for some water. Three of those adult characters saw him, all too occupied by their own problems that they merely ignored him and that led to an event that left me crying my eyes out about how people are so evil.
There was also a scene where a teenage character self harmed herself, and I cringed and cried reading that and her self hatred.
I wanted to slap another character who, if were my son, would have been kicked out of the house on the first page of the book.
Rowling managed to make people fall in love with so many of the Harry Potter characters, and with this book, she managed to make me feel sympathy and disgust at the characters.
Should you read it?
Just give it a try. Especially if you like books that focus on the people and how real they are. Get down and dirty with the words.
How many stars?
Three and a half.
4 comments:
Your review is spot on! I wrote one on my blog ages ago, too. Although I must say I quite liked the book and the characters.
It's good to hear positive things about it and that she is still good at forming characters. I'm not sure I'm going to read it but I do hope it goes well. She does still drop teases about Harry Potter though so it's hard for people to give up on that.
I think I belong to neither camp, which surprises me. I just haven't decided yet, there were some things I liked, and some things I didn't.
That being said, I will definitely be reading whatever Rowling writes next anyway, if she does. I think it's safe to say that I would never have picked this book up if she hadn't written it. (Nor would I have heard so much about it.)
I think I'll read it, if its all about getting in the character's mind then it's my taste. Seems like a good read to me
Your review is helpful =)
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