Recently I’ve become a fan of listening to memoirs in their audiobook format. It is especially immersive experience when the authors themselves narrate their story. The most recent one I picked up is Tom Felton’s Beyond the Wand.
Seeing as Harry Potter and the Wizarding World franchise had an impact on so many people’s lives, I was interested to dive deeper into Tom’s story. Similarly to other memoirs and autobiographies, it is difficult to rate the content as you’re there simply to listen to it.
The book was relatively short but it could be attributed to Tom’s young age – so much more is still ahead of him. The flow of the stories could be improved upon, some of them are going into much more details than others and that left me feeling a bit incomplete. Having said that, they were a good mixture of private and professionals stories, ranging from his real family to his on screen one.
Tom is a good storyteller – he’s engaging, changing his voice tone accordingly, laughing and snarking, conveying range of emotions as he speaks. Some of the chapters, particularly towards the end of the book, Tom gets very earnest and we get to hear about a big personal chunk of his life. Those chapters hit the hardest.
I enjoyed listening to this memoir. The parts of it relating to Harry Potter movies were a nostalgic trip back to franchise I no longer follow, but that was such a big part of my childhood. The rest of Tom’s story isn’t jaw-dropping or filled with drama, but it makes for a mild, easy read. I’m happy I picked up.
The Wolf Pad 