Author: J. K. Rowling
First Published: September 27, 2012
Publisher: Little Brown Book Group
426 pages (eBook)
The most anticipated book of 2012! At first I wanted to read it because I am a fan of Harry Potter and J. K. Rowling. I know, I know, everyone said not to read it if you’re doing it just because it’s by J. K. Rowling, but let’s face it — there’s no other real reason to read it except for that one reason. If that cover said someone else’s name on it, I doubt many people would even glance at it. Then, I changed my mind and I didn’t want to read it because I found out the plot synopsis and it didn’t sound interesting to me at all. I mean, even the cover is pretty boring. I think, eventually I would have succumbed and gave the book a try, but anyway, the real reason I read this book is because it is the November book of my book club.
The Casual Vacancy is a grim story about a little, tiny town called Pagford. Barry Fairbrother, a member of the parish council suddenly dies of a stroke in his very early forties, leaving a ‘casual vacancy’ on the council. Quickly, various members of the town begin to run for the empty spot in the upcoming election. On the surface, it seems like the casual vacancy is the only issue at hand, but Barry’s death reveals the many, many problems and unhappiness that various townspeople have with their own families, with their neighbours, with their own children, with their parents. The Casual Vacancy is a dark and realistic portrait of human unhappiness, frustration and loneliness.
I have mixed feelings towards this book. When I first started this book, maybe for the first half or so, I was really bored. There’s just no other way to put it, sorry — I was bored. I know character-centered stories aren’t normally my cup of tea, but I’ve enjoyed a good handful of them before so it’s not that I don’t enjoy them, I’m just picky with them. This character-centered novel was simply not capturing my attention though. There were so many characters introduced at once that I couldn’t keep track of them. I got Samantha and Shirley mixed up a lot, even up to the end of the novel. Several characters have nicknames so it threw me off a bit to remember two names for one character when I already have so many to keep track of. I did like how there were many perspectives, from adults to children, but the story flits from character to character so often that it isn’t until two-thirds of the way through that I feel I really start to get to know the characters and how they tick — the ones I could remember and tell apart from the others anyway.
The story did get more interesting and picked up some more pace once the computer-hacking stuff begins (you’ll know what I’m talking about if you read it). And then from there, the story got more and more depressing and tragic, in an interesting way. I really was quite absorbed into the story in the last 100 pages or so, and I feel the last 100 pages really redeemed some of the boring-ness I felt for the first half of the novel. The ending made my heart clench up, it was quite sad, and if I was the type of person who easily cried when reading or watching movies, I think I would have. I think the best part of this novel are the teenager characters Rowling presents. She’s really quite good at writing about turbulent and angsty teens. It’s no surprise to me that all the best scenes in the novel involved the teenager characters, especially the ending. (And on that note, while I liked the ending because it got quite an emotional response from me, I’m not quite sure what I was supposed to take away from the ending. It felt like quite a hopeless and depressing ending).
As for complaints that Rowling “tried too hard” to be adult in this book, such as using swear words and having sex in the novels and stuff, I think that’s just silly. Thousands of other adult novels have swearing and sex in it, many of them to much worse degrees than what is presented in The Casual Vacancy. I think anyone complaining about the adult content in this book needs to stop thinking of Rowling as a children’s writer and comparing her older works to this one. The Casual Vacancy is meant to be a realistic and grim picture of human relationships and those things are a part of real life. For all it’s worth, I commend Rowling for trying to write something completely different from Harry Potter.
Overall, I still have some mixed feelings towards the book. I thought the beginning was sluggish and dull, but the ending half was actually quite interesting, in a rather morbid way. I don’t think I would ever re-read this book though. It’s nothing like Harry Potter at all, if that is your only reason for reading this book. If you are a person who enjoys books about character development and “life stories” kind of novels, this is a book for you. If not, I would be kind of wary about picking it up.
My Rating: 3/5
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