No wonder each book of the Harry Potter series seems to be lengthening—more gets involved with every book. This, the fourth, is more ambitious than any of the books before it.
In this book, Rowling’s magical world expands to include the international wizarding community. For the first time, she takes the readers outside the walls of Hogwarts to the Quidditch World Cup—a huge wizard event. And with the announcement of the Tri-Wizard Tournament at Hogwarts, she brings international students within the Hogwarts walls.
If these added complexities weren’t enough, Harry’s becoming a teenager, adding the pressures of adolescence to the fact that the Dark Lord Voldemort and his followers are trying to kill him more than ever, especially now that Voldemort’s slowly regaining power and things are becoming even more dangerous than before. (As if having to get up the guts to ask a girl to the dance wasn’t hard enough for a young teenager.)
So no, considering all that, I’m not surprised that this book is as long as it is—and the quality definitely makes up for the length. There’s a lot to this book—and its end has left all the dedicated Harry Potter fans on the edge of their seats waiting for the fifth book.
I admit, I’m pretty eager to read that fifth book myself, and now that its finally out, I’m planning to do just that…