Book: James Potter and the Hall of Elders' Crossing (James Potter book #1) by G. Norman Lippert
Rating: 1 star (Did Not Finish)
Review:
My first book for the read-a-thon turned out to be Did Not Finish. Sorry if this is a bit long but this was rather disappointing. I didn't expect this to be like Harry Potter but I was hoping it would be better than this. In fact I thought the beginning was enjoyable however it turned into another slow moving boring story.
I stopped reading after chapter 11, I could no longer read anymore. Like I mentioned earlier, the story started out good but began to drag by chapter 6. It started to feel so mind-numbingly drab and boring that I was having a hard time trying to stay with it. Despite the publicity and good ratings this book has received it's nothing more than glamourized fan fiction. This just fell short to capture the world that J.K. Rowling created and a lot of it wasn't canon to the original series. I quickly started to lose interest.
The plot of the story focused on a group of students (mainly Slytherins) at Hogwarts who were hatching a plot to bring back Merlin who in this story is not quite the nice wizard of lore but who is malicious and wants there to be a war on the muggles. The group is called the Progressive Element lead by Tabitha Corsica (who I wouldn't be surprised turned out to be a distant relative of the Malfoys or Voldemort with the way she was written) were using propaganda and rumors to further their cause to seek the "truth" behind what happened with Voldemort. They believed that the winners of The Great Battle had changed the history to make it seem as though Voldemort was the villain when he was only trying to seek change among the wizarding world. As interesting as that might have been, the plot however was underdeveloped and at times haphazard. And not to mention didn't really make much sense.
I don't want to forget that there was also some kind of American magical school that had sent representatives to Hogwarts, including three professors who taught at the school. One was even Benjamin Franklin. Yes, the Benjamin Franklin (or Franklyn as he chose to spell it) who despite his age is not immortal just lived a long life through other means. The other two professors according to Franklin may or may not be apart of the plot to bring back Merlin. But I found I didn't care.
There were things I did like such as the way Harry Potter and Neville Longbottoms were portrayed. I think they were quite well written. I thought James Potter was okay but it would have been nice if the author had given the character a personality. He was nearly forgettable. Unlike the character Zane (one of James' friends), who was memorable but only as the proverbial stupid, uncouth, slightly arrogant American. While James' other friend Ralph just seemed to go along with the crowd until he figured out how to stand up for himself. I also enjoyed the appearance of Severus Snape (well at least to the point where I read). But I didn't enjoy how Headmistress McGonagall was written. She didn't seem to be authoritative or being able to control what was going on at the school.
There were also things that just didn't make any sense or I didn't like such as:
- First years sharing dorm rooms and attending classes with other school years.
- Muggle technology working at Hogwarts as well as some how a muggle was able to get into the school and roam the school grounds unaware.
- First years being able to try out for Quidditch without having taken their first flying lesson.
- Hagrid in disbelief over magical creatures existing. I found that hard to believe that Hagrid wouldn't be the first to believe as well as know whether Naiads and Dryads existed.
- The story was just too Americanized and didn't have a English feel to it. The British characters spoke in American English instead of the United Kingdom version. I also didn't understand how Zane who was American but his parents were in London due to his father's job was accepted to Hogwarts despite with intentions of only attending for one year.
- There was a scene in chapter 6 that didn't sit well with me, it came across as thinly veiled racism. The only character of color the American teacher Madame Delacroix who is called a voodoo queen and several other unkind descriptions throughout, which is strange since J.K. Rowling showed how diverse the students and faculty were at Hogwarts. However this wasn't the case at all in this story. The scene that annoyed me the most was when James after taking his father's invisibility cloak, over hears a conversation between his father and Ben Franklin as they were discussing who may be part of the Progressive Element and Ben suggested that Delacroix and another teacher who is the professor for Technomancy may be involved.
Now this was James' thought: "He hadn’t been surprised that Madame Delacroix might be involved in such a plot." Why? There had been no evidence shown of her doing anything evil, so I don't understand why James would automatically believe she was evil. However, he had a hard time believing that the white male Technomancy professor was involved because James had started to like the professor.
- Another thing that bothered me was the female characters were minimized or were only portrayed as one-dimensional. Even Tabitha Corisca, who was mainly just a plot device.
Overall, there was too much going on in this story, it was too long and boring and lacked the heart of what made the Harry Potter series such a wonderful read. I tried to like this book but it was far from entertaining. The only thing this resulted in doing is making me want to re-read the original Harry Potter series.
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