SOURCE: “Yarn Unfolds as It Should—in Mystical Fashion,” in Globe and Mail, July 10, 2000, p. R3.

In the following review, Perren confirms certain rumors surrounding Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth book in Rowling's series, and feels the book lives up to its high expectations.

Well, it's a doorstopper. Weighing in at almost two pounds, over 600 pages long, Harry Potter IV is a lot of book. You wouldn't be blamed for asking the obvious: Is this logorrhea writ large?

And the answer? Maybe. It all depends how much time you want to spend with Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, Hagrid, et al.

Unlike its predecessors, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire doesn't begin at No. 4 Privet Drive with an underfed and very badly treated Harry longing to escape his ghastly relatives, the Dursleys. Instead, it opens in an abandoned manor house in the village of...