Ruby Loves Adventure

It's Harry Potter's fourth year at Hogwarts, and lots of exciting things have been happening in the wizarding world. First, there's the Quidditch World Cup, with the finals between Bulgaria and Ireland. Then there's the Triwizard Tournament, an event which brings three students from three different schools to be put in three difficult tasks. The winner would get the Triwizard cup, 1000 galleons and school pride.

However, odd things have been happening this year. The Deatheaters crashed the Quidditch World Cup, causing mayhem, a new teacher took over the Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, Professor Moody and he seems more weird compared to the other teachers, and Harry was suddenly chosen as the fourth champion for the Triwizard Tournament. Apart from that, his scar is hurting like crazy and he's been having dreams that Lord Voldemort is back. Could Harry survive this year given all these challenges?

THOUGHTS:
Very good Harry Potter book! It provided a lot of character background about Voldemort, Harry and Dumbledore. I love the way JK Rowling wrote the challenges: they were so vivid, its like I was watching the scene unfold as I was reading the book. Very, very good indeed. The extra characters: Barty Crouch Sr and Jr, Bagman, Viktor Krum, Fleur dela Couer, Cedric Diggory, Rita Skeeter, Madame Maxine and Karkarov [sp?] definitely stirred things up in Hogwarts. It's also nice to know that there are other wizarding schools out there, although they were European schools. I wonder if there was an Australian/Asian/American/African contingent of wizarding schools? That would be awesome!

Anyway, I liked that the story involved a lot about the feelings of Harry, Hermione and Ron. They were teenagers in this, and they are just starting to experience love/like/crushes. The Ron/Hermione shippers would definitely love this book too.

So, what else do I like? By the way, apologies for any spoilers above or below. Its simply hard to type a review about Harry Potter without giving too much away =)

I love Pig, the owl, the merchandise at the Quidditch world cup -- makes me wish that the merchandise we get from various event in real life equal to the quality and the ingenuity of the ones available from the wizarding world. I also loved the other magical creatures -- the house elf, the Veela and the leprechauns and the goblins. teehee. Hmmm.. what else? Did I mention that Voldemort scared the hell out of me? He's creepy! And the latter part of the book is a bit dark, and is a good prequel to what's going to happen on book five.

Very, very, very good book. I'm now a Potter fan and well, every child and person should definitely read the Harry Potter books. You're missing out on a lot if you don't read them! Don't want to read? Well, the movies are equally nice too. The fourth movie was a good representation of the book but there are some details that would be left out, of course.


Published: 2001
Publisher: Scholastic/Bloomsbury
Available from: Amazon and your local booksellers
Read it if: You're a Potterhead. No, everyone should definitely read this book.
Book was acquired from: My friend Toni!
fickle fan/overall rating: