Not only did they change the size of the book, but they also changed the cover style and the interior formatting style! That irks me so much as a reader (doubly as a book designer).

Read: July 13 – July 14, 2024

Genre: Fantasy, Magical Realism, Historical
Audience: Middle-grade, General
Book contains: good vs evil, manipulation, politics, animal death

Purchase a copy from Amazon.ca

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Ended in a Trainwreck

After being absolved of his crimes, Grindelwald is allowed to run in the election for Supreme Mugwump, leader of all wizards. He plans to rig the vote by use of a magical beast known as a Qilin, a horse-dragon creature that can see into your soul. Can Dumbledore, Newt, and the rest of their team stop him before he declares war on the Muggles?

I was extremely disappointed in this story overall. Despite being rewritten and co-written between J.K. Rowling and Steve Klove, the ending of The Crimes of Grindelwald didn’t give the series a lot of options going forward. They abandoned the whole storyline about the predictions of Tycho Dodonis, and the sudden political plot seemed to come out of left field. New things were added to canon that shuffled some things around.

The plot of this book was creating a bunch of confusion so that Grindelwald, the Seer, couldn’t predict their moves, and it seemed to translate into the structure of the book as well. We follow a bunch of different characters as they all do different things, most of which didn’t seem to do anything. I often was asking myself: What did this accomplish?

I read this once again on my balcony, enjoying the summer warmth and some shade. For the last half, I read this book by the poolside (we have a pool set up in our backyard). Great way to wind down after a busy week.

At this point, while the returning characters are lovely, it doesn’t make sense why they were involved other than the fact that Dumbledore chose them. The book did include extra tidbits about the story, such as quotes from the cast and crew, but it couldn’t take me back to the magic and wonder of the first movie/book. Tina was absent (because the actress was busy) and had to be mostly written out, Queenie has changed to the dark side, and while Dumbledore is present, he cannot directly act against Grindelwald because of the blood troth. I was disappointed that Nagini just disappeared and we don’t get any hints about how she went from where she was in The Crimes of Grindelwald to serving Voldemort decades later.

Some of the relationships in this book are a mess, and that’s just life. I liked how some of them evolved, some were fixed, and some just tugged on my heartstrings. It almost made up for the chaos of the plot.

I did not like this style of story at all. They took “counter sight” as inspiration for the book, thus weaving numerous plots together to cause chaos, but I don’t think it worked. This new plot about the election and how it became hugely important also felt like it was grasping at straws. Where did the plots from book 2 go? Why were they abandoned in favour of absolutely new ones? I also felt like there were some missed opportunities in how the whole thing was executed.

Despite the mess, the pacing was okay. Every scene they included in the story was entertaining and let us explore the world, but in the overall plot, not much seemed to be accomplished. It was like a bunch of side stories were included to pad out the run time and build the world, but they didn’t tie into the main plot nicely. They were just all happening at once, and that’s what connected them.

This book was “meh,” so I don’t really recommend buying it. I only bought it because I don’t like having an incomplete set.

Related Reviews:

Fantastic Beasts Book 1: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling
Fantastic Beasts Book 2: The Crimes of Grindelwald by J.K. Rowling
Fantastic Beasts Book 3: The Secrets of Dumbledore by J.K. Rowling & Steve Kloves
Harry Potter Book 1: The Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
The Ickabog by J.K. Rowling