Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Anecdotally, this seems to be a lot of people's favorite of the first three books, if not of the entire series. Rereading them now it's definitely my least favorite of the three so far (though still great).

It feels like there's only a little bit of information dolled out throughout the first three quarters of the book, so then when the climax happens there are pages and pages of exposition just for it to make sense. It's wild!

It's still fun though and some great characters are introduced. Dot's response when I asked for her review: “Good job for making this book”.