Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by J.K. Rowling | Rating: ★★★★★ "My philosophy is that worrying means you suffer twice."
A lot of people are going to blow the lid off on this one for various reasons. I'm not going to argue with you on that--there are many reasons to be put-off by this one. There's no use denying it. That's that. But, I think the first thing that needs to be said is that I didn't like the screenplay only because J.K. Rowling penned it. I liked it because it was something that captivated me from the get-go.
Newt Scamander is far more likable than I was expecting when I picked this up. You need to know this and you also need to remember that he is not Harry Potter. It's easy to compare him to Harry if you allow yourself but that's a mistake. And while it is set in the same world (with differences and similarities, as well as mentions of characters we knew of from Harry's story)--this isn't at all the same story.
I find the characters we're introduced to have the same shimmering magic that we've come to expect from J.K. Rowling's Wizarding World. You (or rather, I) can't deny this because there's just something about them. From Newt, to Tina, to Queenie, to Jacob--there's something that draws you in from the start and keeps you in their orbit. If ever there were four characters that belonged around each other, it's them. And the way they form a connection with one another feels very permanent and indescribable.
