Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling (review by Anika B. '18)

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

By the operationalization of the star rating system, five stars means Harry Potter. Although this book, or play rather, was faced with high expectations, it was everything I hoped it to be and more. This story takes place 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts, and it follows the adventures of Harry and Ginny’s son, Albus, and Draco Malfoy’s son Scorpius. Plagued by troubled relationships with their respective fathers, Albus and Scorpius use a stolen time turner to prevent the death of Cedric Diggory, leading to huge complications.

Due to its structure as a play, the book lacked J.K. Rowling’s signature descriptions, but the dialogue was very smooth and well written. The plot was brilliantly delivered, and there was never a dull moment. The new characters were well developed and the dynamic relationships held the perfect degree of depth. Finally, by taking readers back in time, the book referred to moments from the earlier Harry Potter books in ways that would have made any Potter fan feel nostalgic.

Once I picked up the book, I could not put it down. Although Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was not a traditional Harry Potter book, it did not disappoint.

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We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (review by Anika B. '18)

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars follows a member of the distinguished Sinclair family, Cadence Sinclair Eastman, who is recovering from a brain injury she received in an accident that she cannot remember. As she recalls more about the accident, she begins to question her family’s ideals and develops her own identity. For me, the strongest element of this novel was the addition of various stories about a king and his three daughters being told in parallel to the main plotline. These short stories created an interesting structure and served as perfect transitions between sections. However, besides the protagonist, most characters were very black-and-white, and lacked the dynamic personalities needed for an effective story. Cadence remembers the majority of the details involving her accident quite suddenly towards the end of the book. Spreading out the realizations and starting them earlier in the book might have resulted in a stronger, more engaging novel. Most fans of this book believe the ending to be stunning, but I found it incredibly disappointing, as it seemed to contradict much of what had occurred earlier. Overall, the book had an impressive structure, but the one-dimensional characters and ending diminished its overall efficacy.

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Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler (review by Megan H. '18)

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler (more commonly known under his alias Lemony Snicket) tells the story of the short-lived romance of Min Green, indie film fanatic and nameless nobody at school, and Ed Slatterton, the popular co-captain of the basketball team. The novel follows Min, as she returns mementos from their relationship back to Ed after their breakup, each accompanied by a letter addressing him, which divulges to the reader the story behind the souvenir, as well as a reason that the two broke up, as stated in the title. The backstory behind each trinket composes the entire tale of the relationship, from start to finish, while the letters from Min to Ed reflect her opinions and emotions she feels as she goes through it. Handler excellently depicts the classic teenage relationship, while weaving in his own twists that have always characterized his distinctive writing. Although the events that the two protagonists face are incredibly interesting and unlike a typical romance novel, their personalities sometimes fall flat and seem stereotypical, as Min is depicted as an artsy hipster while Ed is portrayed as the classic jock. However, I still enjoyed this book from the beginning to the end and would recommend it to anyone looking to read a unique story about the life and death of a relationship.

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Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson (review by Andrew R. '17)

Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In Fortune Smiles, which won the most recent National Book Award, Adam Johnson collects six short stories that showcase both his penchant for dark, uncomfortable subject matter and his startlingly powerful ability to treat unsympathetic characters with compassion. Johnson, who has garnered laurels in the past for a novel about North Korea, repeatedly takes on apparently unredeemable perspectives—a virtual-reality-obsessed programmer in Palo Alto, a reclusive pedophile with a traumatic past, a retired and unrepentant East German prison warden—and convinces the reader to replace at least some disgust with sympathy. Certain stories, like “Interesting Facts” (about a raging cancer sufferer) and “Hurricanes Anonymous” (about a displaced delivery man in Louisiana in 2005), miss the magic ratio of darkness to compassion and spoil the effect. But then you get a piece like “Fortune Smiles,” in which Johnson turns his focus back toward North Korea to explore the lives of two defectors to South Korea and their near-suicidal impulse to re-defect back into the North. This story closes the collection, cementing the book’s diverse but complimentary themes: the irrationality of obsession, the persistence of pain, and, most importantly, the essential humanness of everyone, even those we don’t understand.

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