2016 Reading Challenge: A book that was published this year

Since Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has been out for less than 24 hours, I promise you that there will be NO SPOILERS in this post.  This post is just my general reaction to the book as a whole, and to keep with the continuity of how I've been doing this challenge.

At first, I was happy that this is a script instead of a novel because everything moves faster in a script.  No descriptive paragraphs, no pages of a character's internal struggle or confusion.  Everything  just happens.  But as I finished Part One in under three hours, I realized that a novel would last longer.  After all, it took me at least two full days of binge-reading to get through Deathly Hallows.  I finished Cursed Child within 13 hours of owning it, and that's including breaks for 7 hours of sleep, two meals, and doing a load of laundry.

Still - and obviously -  I loved every second.  I absolutely devoured it.  I considered forcing myself to stop for the day, to preserve the length, but really, there was never a chance of that happening.  Rowling's fast-paced style and tendency to end a chapter (or in this case, a scene) on a very intense moment if not an outright cliffhanger were not marred by the presence of the other two authors.  So it was pretty painful to put it down for five minutes to go put the laundry in the dryer.

For years, I've been wishing that I could temporarily delete everything that I know about the Harry Potter series, just so I can experience it for the first time again.  The suspense, the thrill, the wonder and joy, the twists and reveals.  I finally got to experience all of that again, and as an adult at that.  Of course, it happened all too quickly and once again I'll be cursed with the knowledge of what happens, unable to feel surprise because I knew what was coming at every turn.  It's a blessing and a curse.

One more thing, because I fear that if I keep going on I'll reveal too much: I WANT TO SEE THIS PLAY.  The stage directions in the script must be beautiful.  Of course I can picture them in my head, what's happening, as it would in a movie or as I would picture a book happening... but some of these things seem so impossible to happen on stage without the use of CGI!  Some of the stage directions actually gave me goosebumps as I tried to imagine how incredibly magical they would look when enacted on stage.  It makes me hope that Cursed Child will wind up like Phantom of the Opera - it'll have its home base theater for at least 30 years, and there will be occasional tours so that people outside of London can see it, and maybe after about 18 years they'll turn it into a movie.  (I hope it takes way less than 18 years.)  The effects should be as well-known as Phantom's falling chandelier, but I don't think that would take the magic away because everyone still adores the falling chandelier, even after 30 years.

Okay, that's enough out of me.  Maybe, probably, I'll write an entirely spoiler-riddled post that anyone who hasn't read the book yet will know to avoid so I can share my reactions to specific points.

I only have four books left for this challenge!  Once I finish them, I'll officially have out-challenged myself.  Hoorah!  I'm so glad to have gotten back in to reading.  I didn't realize how much I'd missed it. <3