Bravo, Ms. Rowling
Rating:
5 / 5
J. K Rowling has accomplished a task every bit as difficult as apparating or summoning a Patronus: she has written a book which exceeds the hype surrounding its release. I couldn't put it down, and read it in one sitting before turning it over to my eleven-year-old daughter. Rowling's careful plotting of her seven-tome series is nowhere more evident than in this fourth installment. She ties together events from the earlier books with tantalizing hints about what is to come. Her characters stay true to themselves, while continuing to grow and mature. Many authors struggle keeping this kind of consistency in a series, but Rowling succeeds beautifully. Fans of the series will particularly enjoy how Rowling starts to flesh out secondary characters, now that Harry and his friends are well established. A few warnings: although Rowling recaps some elements from previous books, a reader beginning the series in the middle will no doubt be confused. This is one series that really must be read sequentially. Also, the evil elements become even darker and scarier in this installment. Some events might be too gruesome for younger children to hear. Any child mature enough to read a 742 page book, though, should be able to handle the darker material. As the pivotal book of the series, The Goblet of Fire really leaves the reader in suspense at the end--much like the end of The Empire Strikes Back in the Star Wars Trilogy--meaning that there will be even more hype surrounding the release of volume five, which can't happen too soon to suit me!
POTTERIFIC!
Rating:
5 / 5
Amid the media hoopla surrounding this fourth installment of _Harry Potter_, it's easy to get a bit skeptical about Ms. Rowling's purported powers of penmanship. But, all 700-and-some-odd pages live up to the hype and anticipation - this is a GOOD BOOK! It's lovely to revisit all the old Hogwarts' traditions and characters that have grown in the first three books. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are unmistakably older and experience new and intriguing problems in their social lives, but their personalities (and sense of humor) remain unaltered. In addition, we are introduced to some new and wonderfully outrageous characters who happen to also play an intrinsic part in the storyline, and we get to enjoy some very inventive magic. But the best thing about this book is definitely the plot. Every seemingly random tidbit laid down throughout the book swoops together for a breathtaking final hundred pages. It's so satisfying not to have to worry about loose ends. I don't want to give anything even remotely specific away - just enough to make you read the book. The final battle is very exciting, very suspenseful, very evil... And, as I'm sure mothers world over as well as the morning talkshows will appreciate, all kinds of good, moral values are sprinkled throughout the book - wholesome but not preachy, thrilling but not terrifying, with a similar structure to the previous three books but not in the least predictable, and Rowling finally reveals how to pronounce Hermione's name!
Awesome!
Rating:
5 / 5
I definitely think JK Rowling has honed her craft. I did not like the original Potter book, because I thought there wasn't much depth to the characters and everthing was predictable. As of the Prisoner book, I think she has definitely improved. I liked this so much I could barely put it down.The thing that separates this book out from her first two novels is that as the characters age, the plots have become much darker and much less predictable, and this one, in particular, reads almost like a mystery novel, because there is so much left up in the air. The ending also sets the stage for future novels. I think kids and adults (myself included) will find this to be the best Potter book yet (I have not yet read the Order of the Phoenix)
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