Goodreads Rating: 4.55 stars

Goodreads Summary:

Harry Potter is midway through his training as a wizard and his coming of age. Harry wants to get away from the pernicious Dursleys and go to the International Quidditch Cup. He wants to find out about the mysterious event that's supposed to take place at Hogwarts this year, an event involving two other rival schools of magic, and a competition that hasn't happened for a hundred years. He wants to be a normal, fourteen-year-old wizard. But unfortunately for Harry Potter, he's not normal - even by wizarding standards. And in his case, different can be deadly.

My Thoughts:

There is so much going on in this book! I enjoyed starting out with the Quidditch World Cup, although I did miss the traditional Hogwarts Quidditch matches throughout the book. They were replaced with the Triwizard Tournament, but still.

The first time I read this book, I gave it five stars. This time around, it just took me so long to finish! I wasn’t motivated to read it until the last 200 pages or so. The adults were so manipulative and the plot itself wasn’t plausible. Yes, Harry Potter itself isn’t plausible, but they still have rules right? Why was Harry allowed to compete if only one student from each school was supposed to be chosen? He didn’t meet the age requirement, and he was from the same school as Cedric. He didn’t put his own name in, so he shouldn’t have been bound by that rule either.

Dumbledore could’ve easily overruled the cup in order to get Harry out of it, and that’s what he should’ve done. He DIDN’T do that, so he should’ve at least looked into who put Harry’s name in! It seems they all forgot about that.

Fred and George are also dweebs in this book. Blackmail? Nooooo. Stay pure. Mrs. Weasley thinks the worst of Hermione in this book because of what she reads in The Daily Prophet. She KNOWS it isn’t a credible source, so why does she mistreat Hermione? It didn’t seem in her character to begin with. I didn’t like that little tidbit.

The Voldemort bits were evil and great. Cedric’s death was horrifying. The Triwizard Tournament was fantastic. The plot had it going on. It was the characters who could’ve used some work.