Book Blog #105: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling

Title: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Author: J.K. Rowling
# of Pages: 734 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Adventure, Fantasy
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: The summer holidays are dragging on and Harry Potter can't wait for the start of the school year. It is his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and there are spells to be learnt, potions to be brewed and Divination lessons (sigh) to be attended. Harry is expecting these: however, other quite unexpected events are already on the march...
Review: Jeez, Rowling disappointed me with this one. I just couldn't give this one five stars.

So far, out of the four books I have reread, this one is my least favorite. It doesn't help that Rowling increased the size of her books by three-hundred-ish pages.

First off, I don't like the beginning. I hate it when the reader knows information that is unknown to the majority of the characters in the book. Harry is oblivious as to what happened to Bertha until the end bit, but I knew she was dead from the start because of that first scene with Frank!

Harry's weird obsession with Cho seemed a bit odd to me too. She's not even an important character; I don't know that much about her! Yet the protagonist can't seem to stop thinking about her. It's a little annoying.

What is up with the Triwizard thing? If they've had fatalities with this tournament before, who was the stupid person who decided to bring it back? And look what happens on its return: the death of Cedric! This tournament doesn't make any sense; why should it take the place of Quidditch? It's liking telling a high school with a huge sports program to disband their football team for a year. Quidditch involves a greater number of the student body than this dangerous and rather boring tournament. There's only three rather short tasks through the course of a year! Seems like a rip-off to me.

On a more positive note, Cedric's death was more maudlin than the first time I read it. I almost cried when I pictured the scene in the movie with shovel-face Robert Pattinson as Cedric when he's hit with the killing curse.

I pray for improvement in the next book. Of course I'm going to recommend it; if you've gotten to book four, you're pretty committed to the series anyway.