Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
ISBN: 9780747573760
Description
When Harry and his best friends go back for their third year at Hogwarts, the atmosphere is tense. There's an escaped mass-murderer on the loose and the sinister prison guards of Azkaban have been called in to guard the school. Lessons, however, must go on and there are lots of new subjects in third year - Care of Magical Creatures and Divination among others - to take Harry's mind off things.
Reviewed on 21st September 2013
That third Harry Potter novel is one that I must have read a dozen times, and until now, rereading it with the Pottermore website alongside, I've considered it one of my least favourite entries in the series.
The story covers Harry's third year at Hogwarts, which is overshadowed by the escape of Sirius Black from the wizard prison, and attempts to keep the school, and particularly Harry, safe. It's probably the first entry in the series that works to set things up properly for later books, introducing a number of vital characters and plot devices.
The plot of this entry works well, and is significantly different from the first two books, which is probably what put me off a little when I first read it. There's a lot to learn and the characters actually start to develop. My memory was of quite a slow plot and an overly long last few chapters, but that's not what I found in this reading, with the climax actually taking up a much smaller page count than expected.
So on this reading, punctuated by Pottermore moments between each chapter, I've enjoyed it more than previously, but it's still not my favourite book in the series.
