HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN - J.K. Rowling (March 6/19)

This one took me a while, a long while. It seriously drags in the middle, as Rowling devotes chapter after chapter to Harry and the gang's less-than-compelling Hogwarts-based exploits. It's just so episodic and devoid of momentum. But it definitely picked up towards the end with a BTTF 2 type climax and a reveal that Sirius Black isn't, in fact, evil. But yeah, if this one was dragging hard, I'm kind of dreading the next few books. **1/2 out of ****