"How many people have died for the Boy Who Lived?" 
 I've reread this book just once, today, since I first read it on the day it was released. I rated it 5 stars then, lost in the blissful daze of being transported back into the Wizarding World again. I don't know what I was thinking then. There were so many plot holes in this instalment and some of the characters were even OOC. Honestly, it just read like fanfiction instead of an actual, well-thought out story. 
 WARNING: THIS IS THE END OF THE SPOILER-FREE ZONE. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FROM HERE ONWARDS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. 
 I'm going to address the elephant in the room which I'm sure is the first thing on everyone's minds: Delphi, the child of Voldemort and Bellatrix. I've always known (and accepted) that Bellatrix had an infatuation with the Dark Lord, but I always imagined it to be more of fanatical hero worship than a relationship with any sexual elements. The knowledge of who Delphi was threw me off for quite a while. Let's face it: Voldemort would never have had a kid. This premise by itself was already very off-putting since it was totally a huge leap away from Voldemort's character and personality in the original series. 
 I loved seeing Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny again; I was eager to see all the original characters and their kids. But I was severely disappointed. Don't get me wrong, I was glad to see their cameos - but they were written so out of character that they didn't seem familiar to me any more. I'm (yes, present tense) a die-hard Potterhead - I read the series at 10-11 years old, and it's been more than 5 years and here I am, still as obsessed as I was the very first time. I even speak Wizard: I've become well-known among my friends for casually throwing out Harry Potter terms into everyday conversation like they're perfectly normal. I've reread the books so many times and each time I open a Harry Potter book it feels like I'm coming home. (Hogwarts will always be my home.) But it wasn't like this with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts One and Two. I was excited to see how Harry would turn out as an adult, an Auror, and a father - and let me safely tell you that Harry Potter, who pined for his parents his whole life and was mistreated by his aunt and uncle, would never treat his kid the way he did, or tell his son he wished he wasn't his son. 
 That line made me so angry. I nearly gave up my reread because of this. There's absolutely no way Harry would ever say that, given his own childhood and what he's been through. 
 Add to that the fact that the other characters fell very short of my expectations. Ron was a flat, two dimensional character with bad humor, and I can barely remember any Hermione lines at all. I thought Albus Potter was rather whiny, overly dramatic and a little too attention-seeking for my taste. The only saving grace was Scorpius Malfoy. He was such an adorable cinnamon roll and for most of the time I wanted to hug him. Rose Granger-Weasley was a great character too, but she didn't get more than a few lines. 
 I wasn't that bothered by the script format in this book, but it did have the adverse effect of making the setting less detailed (and as a result, less enchanting). In the Harry Potter books, the setting was described in amazing prose that captivated me, but there were no such descriptions in this book. The play wasn't difficult to read, but it just didn't have as much of a magical effect as the Harry Potter books. 
 I'd have no qualms giving this book 1 or 2 stars, but I just can't bring myself to rate a Harry Potter book anything below 3 stars; it would absolutely break my heart and leave me shattered. This series and these characters were literally my childhood and it's not something I can just casually give a low rating to, no matter how trashy the book was. I know I'm really biased but I'm still in disbelief. Like, jaw-dropping, eyes-glazed-over disbelief. What on earth happened between Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and this book?? The epilogue in Deathly Hallows was so lovely. It was such a beautiful closure all by itself. The fandom could really have done without this eighth instalment at all.