I consider GOF to be the “transition” book in the series–despite scary dementors and basilisks, there are quite a few childish romps. But here, the end is absolutely gutting.
Harry is about to begin his fourth year at Hogwarts. He gets to go to the Quidditch World Cup with the Weasleys, where somebody lets off a Dark Mark using Harry’s wand. The Dark Mark is the sign that Lord Voldemort used to summon his followers and to show off that he had just done great evil. So…everyone gets nervous.
Then, at Hogwarts, there is a Tri-Wizard Tournament that is going to take place at the school. Two other schools, Beauxbatons in France, and Durmstrang somewhere in Russia or Eastern Europe (based on characters’ names), will participate. One champion of-age from each school will participate. But there’s a kink in the plan–someone enters Harry’s name without his knowledge or permission. So he has to participate.
This book showed me where some of Harry’s intellectual flaws lay. I think he relies too much on his own bravado and doesn’t always follow his head–like Hermione. Maybe it’s that my own career has me in-my-head soooo much that Harry’s brushing off the library or intelligent things just gets irritating after awhile (we won’t even start on Ron).
Of course, it’s hard to disassociate the book from the movie these days, so the Cedric parts always reminded me of a much younger and more innocent Robert Pattinson:
Poor RPatz. You had no idea the Twilight taint would fall so hard upon you.
I found Cedric to be a tragic character, beyond the oh-look-poor-pre-Twilight-RPatz phenomenon. Cedric is honestly just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that’s all I can say, except that the end had my eyes slowly leaking tears for quite a few of the final two or three chapters.
And then, of course, there’s the problem that I am still stuck on Season 2 of Doctor Who because I cannot get THIS image out of my head:
It’s a real dilemma.
You can also read this review on my personal blog, The Universe Disturbed.
Cannonball Read V 
Ooh, keep going with Doctor Who. I really did not like Tennant’s version of Crouch and it stopped me from trying DW for a while. BUT HE’S SO GOOD AS THE DOCTOR. Like, almost instantly you forget Crouch and fall in love with him.