Title: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter #4)
by J.K. RowlingPublishing Info: July 8, 2000 by Scholastic Inc.
Source: Library
Genres: Children's & Middle Grade, Fantasy, Fantasy, Young Adult
Find it on the web: Buy from Amazon // GoodreadsDate Completed: May 7, 2014
Related Posts: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter #1), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter #2), The Hogwarts Library, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter #3), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter #5), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter #6), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter #7), Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Harry Potter #8)
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 and (unluckily) Potions and Divination lessons to be attended. But Harry can't know that the atmosphere is darkening around him, and his worst enemy is preparing a fate that it seems will be inescapable ...With characteristic wit, fast-paced humour and marvellous emotional depth, J.K. Rowling has proved herself yet again to be a master story-teller.
How is it that each time I re-read a Harry Potter book, I find myself amazed all over again? I know I said it before with the first three books, especially with my amazement of how much I enjoyed HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN when it used to be my least favorite book of the series, but honestly. J.K. Rowling really stepped everything up a notch with HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE.
Sure, we stepped from defending the world from a supervillain in the first two books and magical school hijinks to personal vendettas and darker family history in book three, but GOBLET OF FIRE puts Harry in mortal peril preeeeeetty much all year. It’s not as apparent how much time passes int he movies, but Harry is literally involved in the Triwizard tournament all freaking year and pretty much his state in the mortal world depends on how well he can figure out these clues before it’s time to put him in front of another dangerous task that may or may not kill him.
Aside from upping the danger, things also get exponentially darker. Not only is Voldemort still involved, as always, but we learn more about the Death Eaters — his dedicated followers — but also the Unforgivable Curses and so much more about the dark years that preceded Voldemort’s decline. We’ve seen the bad guys punished in previous books and we knew about the awful deaths that occurred when Harry was just a baby, but Goblet of Fire… This book really takes a dive into the deep end of the dark. Bad things happen to good people in this book and there are just some really gut-wrenching moments that even when you know they’re coming still hit you hard.
This is another book whose movie really started to deviate a lot — not even necessarily changing events and specifics but we lose whole plot lines and characters. I’m not necessarily disappointed looking back because of course you can’t adapt everything in a book for a movie, but it’s kind of amazing when you see what has changed and what you totally forgot about. Here are just a few.
- Ludo Bagman: Remember Ludo Bagman? He’s the head of Magical Games and Sports and once played Quidditch for the Wimbourne Wasps. If you haven’t read the books in a long time and you’ve been watching the movies, I’m sure you remember Ludo Bagman but you wouldn’t believe how much he is actually a part of the books!! He’s involved in so many scenes, from beginning to end!
- S.P.E.W.: The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, for those who aren’t familiar, was Hermione’s attempt to free the house elves from their lifetimes of enslavement. However……. I was not sorry to see that go. Sorry, not sorry, Hermione. It was a bit much!
- Winky: To go along with S.P.E.W., Winky was a house elf who also played a very significant part in the book. But again….. eh. Not sorry to see that go and be adapted in a different way! Oh, the movie spoils me in some ways.
- Rita Skeeter’s “downfall”: I mean, we’re assuming here that you all have read the books if you’re reading my review, but I’ll try to remain mostly spoiler-free here, so Rita! I wish the movie had at least touched on what really happened to her at the end of the book and how Hermione really put her in her place!
My take from the audiobook re-read? This may be a new contender for my favorite Harry Potter book out of all seven. Then again, my current favorites are five and six, so there’s still time for that to change! We’ll have to see how those audiobooks go as well. HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE was just SO good. An amazing book to begin with and so much fun to re-read (for the countless time because I’ve honestly lost track)!
“The View from Goodreads” is a new featured section in my reviews that I decided to incorporate! I tend to update my Goodreads status a LOT when I read — reactions, feelings, notes — so I thought it would be fun to share the sort of “reading process”! All status updates are spoiler-free (no specific plot points will be revealed) but will contain reactions to certain pages and/or characters!
Harry // Character Obsessions: Triwizard tournament, friends, Sirius, dark wizards, Quidditch.
Harry’s time in the 4th book is pretty much spent with the Triwizard Tournament. Everything else sort of takes a backseat, naturally! It’s interesting to see Harry mature throughout the series and yet you still see how young he really is. He’s still a teenager and despite how maturely he handles the tournament… He really doesn’t. He doesn’t stay on task and his friends and teachers have to prod him along to make sure he won’t die in the tasks but he always handles things with Voldemort like such a badass. He’s a Gryffindor — brave, but not always motivated haha.
Hermione // Character Obsessions: S.P.E.W., helping Harry, Rita Skeeter.
I love Hermione but… I’m glad they took the whole house elf story line out for the movie! It really started to grate on my nerves because she’s just so obsessed with it.
Kept Me Hooked On: Goblet of Fire. WOW. I forgot how much I loved this book. Obviously I love the whole series and I always knew I loved GoF but I forgot how awesome this book really was. Based on how my re-reads go with the rest of the books, this may jump in the front on my favorites list!
Left Me Wanting More: Of the series. I immediately wanted to start Order of the Phoenix. But this series will do that to you!
Addiction Rating
Re-Read it!
If you haven’t re-read Harry Potter in a long time (or *ahem* if you haven’t read it at all yet) I highly recommend you get on that soon! They just get better with time!
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3 thoughts on “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter #4) – J.K. Rowling”
I finished up the Harry Potter series for the first time earlier this year! I was late with my obsession, but completely obsessed none the less! This book was my favorite out of all of them & would probably be my first to re-read!
Great review! I actually grabbed the first HP book last night so I can start my reread of the series! I haven’t read it in a really long time, so I’m excited to start! (:
Goblet of Fire has always been my least favorite book of the entire series, however, your comments made me think of it a little differently. I had not really thought about exactly HOW MUCH important background information is provided in this book. I’ve always said that Order of the Phoenix and Prisoner of Azkaban are my favorites, closely followed by Half-Blood Prince, and while those remain my favorites, I think I could possibly now be convinced to move Goblet of Fire up in the list a little bit. Thanks for the great, thought-provoking comments!