Mar 9, 2017

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

by J. K. Rowling

This little book disappointed me. I was surprised at first how short it is. It's presented as a textbook on magical beasts, a copy owned by Harry Potter with his handwritten comments and jokes in the margins. Which were kind of lame. The text itself is too brief to be interesting. It's got more historical background and explanation that actual descriptions of the beasts. Which give less detail than the typical species profiles in my aquarium books! I'm guessing all these creatures are ones mentioned in the Harry Potter books, although I only recognized two-thirds of them. For me, it didn't really do much to add to the wizarding world Rowling created. Not impressed. I guess I'm too old to enjoy this kind of fan publication.

Anybody else read this one? Looking for more opinions online I was unable to find any decent reviews about the book since the film (of the same name but not the same material) is getting so much attention online right now.

Rating: 2/5             42 pages, 2001

3 comments:

  1. I've read it long ago when it first came out. I too was disappointed so I was super surprised about the movie which had nothing to do with the book it turned out.

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  2. While I don't think I read that one, none of the official extra books impressed me. I had the same impression as you: Too short, not enough info/details.

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  3. I read this when it first came out and they had framed it as kind of a supplemental material to the books that JKR was doing for charity. That kind of framing was probably the best one -- I didn't expect much from it, and I was pleased with what I got. Definitely not necessary to the HP series, though.

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