A review by chezler24
Beyond the Wand: The Magic & Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard by Tom Felton

informative lighthearted reflective fast-paced

3.25

Listened to the audio book, and really enjoyed Tom Felton's narration. It made it really easy to listen to and the storytelling was quite fluid. Definitely would have devoured this back during my peak Harry Potter enjoyment.  It was interesting getting to hear about the different actors he met, learning about his family life, and seeing the progression from childhood actor into adult. I do feel that this felt like the first part in a memoir. Tom is still relatively young and has a good chunk of life left to live; it just so happened that he was part of such a worldwide phenomenon from a young age. I felt like we just barely scratched the surface at what makes him tick. The final chapters (dealing with life post-Potter and dealing with finding work, developing an alcohol addition, and undergoing rehab) started to touch on some deeper musings beyond the rosier picture that was painted with the average family life, star studded sets, and stellar career. As a closer look at life of a "muggle playing a wizard," this gave a lot of interesting perspective; however, as a memoir I feel like there just needs to be a bit more room to grow and breathe or maybe to include some more "realness" or "rawness" behind the "behind the scenes" passages. 
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