After reading the last Harry Potter book, I was pretty excited to read the Goblet of Fire. I was not disappointed.

The Goblet of Fire begins with those bastard Dursleys again and their nastiness towards Harry. Though, this time around Uncle Vernon knows that the escaped maniac Sirius Black is Harry’s Godfather and that Harry and Sirius have a close relationship. Needless to say, Uncle Vernon shuts his mouth a little bit more when dealing with Harry. There is a funny scene in the beginning of the book where the Weasleys come to take Harry away before the end of the summer and “meet” the Dursleys – very funny.

From there we are taken to the Quidditch World Cup and introduced to some new characters like Winky, Mr. Crouch, and Mr. Bagman. Winky is Mr. Crouch’s house elf (remember Dobby?) who is accused of mustering the “Dark Mark” (Voldemort’s sign). This sends the entire wizarding world into a frenzy since the Dark Mark hasn’t been seen in more than thirteen years. Also, this is apparently the mark that appears before Voldemort and his crew, “the Death Eaters,” would kill someone.

Next Harry, Hermione, and Ron are off to Hogwart’s for another year when they find out that there is a tournament to be held at their school this year. Randomly in the beginning of the book, there is discussion of other wizarding schools around the world and the concept of Harry Potter’s world being bigger than just England and Hogwarts begins to set in (which is good!).

From there the gang meets Mad-Eye Moody and a whole bunch of other crazy stuff happens, not the least of which is the return of Lord Voldemort in what can only be described as a creepy, well-written piece of literature by Ms. Rowling. I will say, though, that towards the end of the novel there is a bit of stone-walling done by the Ministry of Magic that ultimately does not fit in with the previous description of the wizarding community or the storyline and makes for an awkward read. Having read almost half of the fifth Harry Potter book at this point, I can say that this awkwardness carries well into the fifth book and has not been resolved yet.

The Tri-Wizard Tournament and the introduction of non-Hogwarts characters makes this the best Harry Potter book that I’ve read so far. For those of you who are a bit older than the general Harry Potter crowd like I am, if you can suffer through the first two books and their obviously slant towards children and make it to the second two books (3 and 4), then you’re in for a treat.

I recommend the fourth book in the Harry Potter series: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.