I found the eighth “book” (which is actually a screenplay) in the Harry Potter universe to be a fun if somewhat trite story. It’s a more-or-less faithful projection of the story arcs for each of the characters we know so well, from Harry through to Draco. We pick them up where the Epilogue in Book 7 left off, and go on a time-travel adventure that is a reasonably decent carbon copy of every other time-travel adventure ever written, complete with the law of unintended consequences and all of that.

One nice side benefit of the law of unintended consequences is the way in which it reveals Rowling’s calculations about her own characters from earlier books. For example, there is a bit of rumination on Hermione’s and Ron’s relationship, and Victor Krum’s role in it. I found that to be a rather fascinating tell.

There’s been some critique that Rowling does not do a terribly good job of including minorities in her books - for all that the larger moral of the storyline champions diversity and multiculturalism. And though ten years or so have passed since book 7 was written, “book” 8 is not as a rule better on this score. Albus and Scorpious are very clearly meant to have a more-than-friends relationship, but the text never seems to actually acknowledge the homoerotic undertones. More than a point of political critique, I think that sort of non-acknowledgement weakens the story a bit; on the whole it makes the plot less believable and more annoying somehow.

All that said, this screenplay shares a lot of the same fun-and-gripping feeling that the original seven books included. I read it essentially in a single sitting and enjoyed it quite a bit.