As You Like It / William Shakespeare / 263 pgs / Audiobook / Movie Adaptations

I'm in the process of reading all of Shakespeare's works, roughly one a month so far, and I just finished As You Like It. I like reading them in print and then listening to an audio version. This is a great Shakespeare production in performance, but I was underwhelmed reading it. The circumstances give the Bard quite a few opportunities to comment on gender, especially when Rosalind is dressed as Ganymede. She has many more freedoms as a man and knows she’ll be giving up a lot when she goes back and again when she marries. There’s also some muted commentary on race and station which I didn’t catch until reading background information. Celia and her friendship with Rosalind is my favorite part about this play. As one of my friends pointed out to me, this is “beach read Shakespeare” and best experienced in visual or audio form!

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child/ Jack Thorne/ 325 pg

Harry Potter and the Crused Child, a collaborative script, is a play put together by Jack Thorne, J.K. Rowlings, and John Tiffany.  The play picks up with Harry seeing his youngest son Albus, off to Hogwarts.   Albus quickly befriends Scorpius, son of Draco Malfoy and before long trouble ensues.  Time travel by the two young men create chaos in the present when parents switch partners and good switches with bad.  Eventually everyone realizes what's really important and Voldemort is once again defeated.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child / J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne / 328 pgs

Harry Potter, 19 years after the end of the Battle of Hogwarts, is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic and father to James, Albus, and Lily. When Albus goes off to Hogwarts, however, and befriends the son of Draco Malfoy, the rift between father and son grows too wide with devastating consequences. I think the most surprising thing about Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was how quickly I finished it. Obviously, a play is only dialogue and a few stage directions, taking up far less space on a page than a novel would, but it still surprised me that I read the book in only a little over two hours. For that reason, I'm quite pleased I resisted buying the book. I'm so mixed about what to rate this. It just wasn't quite enough for me. Obviously, like I said, it's a play, and perhaps seeing it live would make it enjoy it more than I did. I don't want to spoil the major plot points, so it's hard to say more. Some have said that it reads more like an average-written fan fiction, and I would heartily agree with that assessment. I'm not even sure if I accept the story as canon.