Wow! That was an amazing book. I have so many thoughts about it that they're going to be difficult to organize. This is easily my favorite of the HP books so far. 
 First, a quick recap of my HP adventure. I read the first HP book back when i was a tween, then i saw the first movie and decided it was close enough to the book for me and went back to my Star Wars novels instead of continuing on with the HP book series. I saw all of the movies as they came out, and promptly forgot them for the most part. But i liked them a lot, so recently i decided it was time i read all of the books and re-watch each movie as i finished them. 
 So what i remembered about this fourth one from watching the movie long ago was that there was the tournament which Harry competed in, and Robert Pattinson also played someone who competed in it, and there was one task that involved rescuing people who were underwater and another task in a maze-like thing in which some boy died. I pretty much forgot everything else. My memory for movies is terrible. 
 Because my memory of the story was so poor, i enjoyed the book immensely. There were many surprises for me, especially at the end. I feel like i'm the last person on Earth to read these books and actually be surprised by them, and it's kind of an eerie feeling. Like i'm stuck in the past while the world is decades ahead of me. But i digress. 
 I loved the little hints about Ron & Hermione's jealousy, even if it was borderline annoying how they bitched at each other incessantly. And Hermione's sudden political-mindedness was definitely obnoxious, but thankfully it faded out for the last third or so of the book. The focus of this book is a little more squarely on Harry; Hermione and Ron played bigger roles in the previous books, and i liked that. But i also love Harry, now more than ever. So, i'm not complaining. 
 I loved the little romance Hagrid had, and the drama with Cho and Fleur and Krum and all that. The ball was delightful. I did kind of remember that from the movie, because i love relationship drama. I thought it was a little far-fetched that the Beauxbatons and Drumstrang students just hung out at Hogwarts for an entire year doing nothing because the tournament tasks were so spread out, meanwhile their respective schools were without their headmasters. But it worked so well for the story that i don't really care anymore. 
 I'm amazed at how many characters Rowling is able to invent and create compelling stories for within the Harry Potter world. Rita Skeeter, all the Weasley brothers, Hagrid, Ludo Bagman, Neville, Snape, Mr. Crouch -- there were so many little stories within the bigger story of this book, which itself is within the bigger story of the series, and each one of them was important and interesting. 
 And Voldemort. Lord Voldemort is terrifying. Poor Harry. Brave, amazing, wonderful Harry. What a perfect end battle. But that was just the beginning of the end. There was another fascinating twist that i didn't see coming at all, and all of the loose ends and little mysteries and stories were tied up so neatly into one marvelous package. I'm almost afraid to go on in the series, though, because this is clearly just the beginning of Voldemort's second reign of terror, and i know things get even darker and sadder and more difficult from here on out. I think i'll read a different book before i start the next one, as i had been doing in between the previous books. 
 Brava, J. K. Rowling. You really are a skilled writer, and deserving of quite a large portion of your mountainous heap of cash. I'm really starting to get it now.