Before I share my review on this book I want to say, Happy New Year! It’s been a while since I’ve posted. But I’m back and I’m hoping to grow my blog this year! So all of your support is much appreciated.
Beyond the Wand: The Magic and Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard
By Tom Felton
Memoir
304 pages
Published October 15, 2022 by Grand Central Publishing
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
When it was announced that Tom Felton was coming out with this book, I was so excited. I grew up with Harry Potter and the Wizarding World in my life and it still holds a special place in my heart.
This book was both everything I hoped for and not at all what I expected. Tom talks about his life from an early age, growing up with 3 older brothers and what it was like being a “maggot”. He talks about the support his mother showed him through all of the many different hobbies he tried and he talked about his career and its pros and cons from the time he started acting till now.
Toms’ book starts off with an introduction to his family and the beginning of his career as a young actor. His first film was The Borrower’s, one of my all time favourite movies from my childhood. Peagreen was my favourite character too.
Throughout the book he mentions how important it was to maintain his normal teenage life. I can’t blame him for wanting that, especially when playing a role like Draco Malfoy. He mentioned having lots of strange “fan” encounters, where they are more team Harry over Draco and they treat him horribly. They acted not only as if he wrote his own script and character, but that he is also actually his character. It’s very unfortunate for someone of any age to deal with that, especially a young person, worse if it’s around friends.
He also talked about how most of his friends couldn’t care less about his role in Harry Potter or any movies for that matter. Which helped him maintain his normal teenage life for the most part.
I was most excited to get to all the Harry Potter parts of the book. I loved reading about his experiences with other cast and crew members on the set. Reading about his perspective as a less popular character in one of the biggest movie franchises was really fun and interesting.
There were quite a bit of unexpected twists in this. Towards the end, when he really opens up about what he’s been through, I was not really expecting that. I’ve never been one to invest my time in celebrity lives and know what they’ve been through or not. I loved how open and honest he was and I know how healing that must have been for him and I hope he is really proud of that.
Talking about our issues and problems like that is a very difficult thing. Being vulnerable to even a single person can take an incredible amount of strength, so putting that in a book for the world to read must have been pretty scary. But I know he was able to make a deep connection with so many of his fans and that is very special.
Overall, I loved this book. I’m eventually going to listen to the audiobook too, because I’ve heard lots of positive feedback on how he does it. I’d definitely love to hear his story from his own mouth.
Parts may have been a bit repetitive, such as the mentioning of wanting a normal childhood and life while filming Harry Potter, and how he felt as the youngest brother. But, this wasn’t written by someone who’s been writing bestsellers for their whole career. It was written by someone who was putting their exact thoughts, feelings and experiences into words and, for that reason, the repetition was not an issue for me.
This is definitely a book for all Harry Potter lovers. Whether you’re a Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor or Ravenclaw and even if you’re a Malfoy hater. This book is a must read.
Thank you so much for reading my review. If you’ve read this book I would love to hear your thoughts on it, so please leave a comment! I appreciate all your support with likes, comments and shares.
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