Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

In early February, I headed to London for the weekend (like the typical European I now am) to go see the newest addition to the Harry Potter saga, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I bought my tickets over a year ago, not willing to take a chance in the tickets selling out or the play ending before I got to see it.
I have heard a lot of mixed reviews about it... Many people who had read the script alone had said it wasn't anything close to something Rowling would have written, and those who had seen the play were completely amazed. I decided to wait to see the play to read the script/book and I'm so glad I did.

The two parts of the play happen in the Palace Theatre, an enormous and beautiful theatre in the West End, the sort of "theatre district" of London. It's surrounded by small cafés and other theatres, but this one stands out with its red brick face and of course, the giant Cursed Child logo on the front. There are about 1,400 seats and is sold out every night!

The verdict? I'm torn.

The play itself, was amazing! The script was great, the actors were extremely talented, the sets were so clever and the entire mise-en-scène was spectacular. Being a story about magic, they managed to have spells with light, fire, things and people lifting up in the air, even a scene under water and not one of these special effects seemed cheap. You could hear the sighs and "wow!"s or the crowd with each new special effect and sometimes even just from the dialogue. Both nights when the curtain fell over the stage, we all left the theatre in total awe and excitement.

The story itself, on the other hand, I'm not so fond of. If you take the play for a single piece of theatre unrelated to the Harry Potter series, then it's fantastic. But if you consider it a part of the series, you'll be quite disappointed by the story. Without giving any spoilers away, I'll try to explain what I mean. The play is set 19 years later, and starts exactly where book 7 left off, on the platform 3/4, with Harry's kids leaving for Hogwarts. Of course, we have a whole new set of characters, but also a lot of familiar faces coming back as we find out what happened to them as well. I don't know about you, but people don't usually change drastically when they go from their teenage years to their adult years, at least not a whole 180 in personality.
There were so many characters that would say or do things and I kept thinking "No way, they would never ever do/say that!" A few events also made me shake my head, thinking it would be impossible for this to happen, making the story a little hard to believe, if -and only if- you take it straight from Harry Potter.

I compare it a little bit with The Hobbit movies, with all the extra storylines they added that were unnecessary. As a movie on its own, it's great, but if you follow the story, it's not so great. Cursed Child is much the same.

All in all though, it was a really wonderful play and would still recommend that every Harry Potter fan should see it.  Five years after the last movie and nine years after the last book, we get to dive into our favourite story all over again.

German Men Sit Down to Pee.... A Book Review

One thing that always surprises me, is when someone has actually read my blog. I mean, I know people read it, but when someone tells you they read a specific post, it's always a nice surprise. It kind of makes you feel like a celebrity sometimes!
In December, I received an email from a man named James Cave, who had read my post about moving to Germany. He co-wrote a book called "German Men Sit Down to Pee And Other Insights Into German Culture" and was hoping I could read it and make a review, seeing as I could soon be an "expert" in the subject (my words, not his). He sent me a copy of his book and I finally got around to reading it!
So here is my review:

Everyone knows Germans are an interesting people.... They follow rules like their lives depend on it, they eat a lot of sausage, make some of the best beer in the world, they don't have a sense of humour, are extremely efficient, that there are no speed limits on the Autobahn and well... there's the Nazis.
In German Men Sit Down to Pee, you are taught about German culture, all the quirky things Germans do, like wait for the green man to cross the street no matter what happens and some of the strange rules that are in place, like on some beaches, there are rules for the maximum size sandcastles can be. It also demystefies all those stererotypes that Germans have, though most of them are true, they all come with a twist;
-Germans DO have a sense of humour, we just don't understand it.
-The WWII times are discussed heavily, but Nazi salutes are illegal and Nazi jokes are not funny.
-There is more than one "Autobahn" (which literally just means motorway) and some do have speed limits.

I won't give away too much... You'll have to read it for yourself!

I've only been in Berlin for about 2 weeks now, but I did live in a German family for 2 months a few years ago, and I can definitely say that a lot, if not all of the things in this book are hilariously true. Some of them you're scratch your head and wonder what planet these people came from, and others you'll think "why don't we do this too?!"

All in all, it's a hilarious book, which also offers advice, and whether you plan to visit Germany for a few days or live there for a few years, it's definitely worth a read.

Reading Lord of the Rings For the First Time

I've been a fan of Lord of The Rings for as long as I can remember. I've seen the movies a million times, and they've even inspired me to become a filmmaker. I basically know the movies by heart, but have never actually read the books! I know, it's a little bit of a travesty.
I started reading the books in December 2014, and have very slowly made my way through them over a year. The reason it took so long to read was mainly due to school. November-April was incredibly busy for me and I must've read at least 3 textbooks cover to cover, 3-5 novels and countless short stories. I also got way too invested in Grey's Anatomy Netflix and worked three jobs during the summer, so it didn't leave a lot of time for reading. I really did wish I could have read them faster, though.

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I'm glad I read them. I loved every single minute of reading The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien is an amazing writer and story-teller. You can't even compare the books to the movies. The books are amazing, and so are the movies. Many people complained about certain characters or details that were left out, but I didn't really see how they could have been important to the movies. They were mostly just random characters the Hobbits met along the way and never heard of again.

One of my favourite things about the books, is Bill the pony. I think it's hilarious that Tolkien took so much care in telling the story of this one pony. At the beginning of their journey, the Hobbits were given a pony that was being mistreated whose name was Bill (just like his master). He was described as skinny and sad, but as the journey went on, all the up to Moria, Tolkien made sure to update the reader on Bill, and how he seemed to become healthier and happier. "So Bill was going as the beast of burden, yet he was the only member of the Company that did not seem depressed."
And just as we thought we had forgotten about poor Bill, he reappears in the last book and we find out his fate!

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It's all the little details like this that made me enjoy the books so much. They are a masterpiece and honestly when you're reading them, they almost start to sound like real history books.

Harry Potter Party

Did you know that Bloomsbury just came out with an illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone?! Well... the book launch was yesterday!! McNally Robinson decided to host a "Harry Potter Party" at the Winnipeg location to celebrate the launch. It brings back so many memories of all the book launches that we all went to as the Harry Potter series came out. I remember when the last book came out, there was a huge party at Assiniboine Park with music, games, Chocolate Frogs, Wands, Bertie Botts Flavoured Beans, etc. for everyone to enjoy!

There was a live book reading of the Philosopher's Stone - they were literally reading the whole book! People came dressed in costumes and sat in the bookstore listening to the reading, following along with their own copy! There was also butterbeer and little themed pastries.

This book is gorgeous! Here are a few images from the book:

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Now excuse me as I go binge-watch the entire Harry Potter series....!

Wait, this isn't Harry Potter!

This past month, I read The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling. This was her first novel for adults after Harry Potter. Of course, being a huge fan of Harry Potter, I needed to read her new stuff! There were so many different reviews about this novel, some very good, some very, very bad, that I needed to see for myself.
Here's the synopsis:
When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils ... Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

I thought it sounded pretty interesting, even if there weren't any wizards, so I gave it a try and I was really impressed! It's very very very very different from Harry Potter, that's for sure! Rowling wasn't afraid to go all out, with almost too-vivid descriptions of people, using a lot of swears (only when necessary, of course), and just depicting super realistic characters and situations.
In total, there are 34 characters, and we read from each of these characters' point-of-views at least once, and there's quite a range: from a 64 year old delicatessen owner, to a pimple-y teenager, to a 2 year old boy.
Personally, I loved the story because it was just so entertaining! It was like being a fly on the wall, peaking into everyone's lives in this small town where everyone gossips like old women. There are some hard moment in the book, like the scenes when we go to Krystal Weedon's house, which is in the very poor part of the town and her mother is a heroin addict, so the house is a complete mess. Those parts were kind of slap-in-the-face moments, when reality hits hard, though they are usually followed by a hilarious scene, like Ruth, a middle-aged married woman fantasizing about her daughter's favourite boy band.

I think the bad reviews came mostly from people who were expecting another Harry Potter type novel and were disappointed with the lack of magic, because it really was a great novel. Living in a small town type community, this gave me a good laugh because it was so similar to what my life is, while others may look at this and not really think about it too much.

Anyway! They are making a TV show out of it, and I'm sooooo excited about! But definitely read the book! It's really good, entertaining and shows you just how talented J.K. Rowling is: she invented a small town with a whole history, and wrote 34 different point of view characters in one book, all tightly nit together.

Have you read The Casual Vacancy? What did you think of it?