J. K. Rowling

The Casual Vacancy

maitha mana

Due to several nightmares keeping me up, I've decided to grab this book and end it for once and for all. Honestly, what was Rowling thinking? Although, I've got to admit the ending granted the book a star. And another star due to generosity and the respect I have for this woman. (P.S. The book really isn't that bad when you're terrified at 2am with no other book in reach).

Meagan Fischer 

Wilde

The characters were hard to like for most of the book but the ending was interesting.

Joana da Silva

A J.K. Rowling é uma senhora, disso nunca duvidei, mas este livro veio prová-lo ainda mais. O enredo é fabuloso e as personagens são tão bem estruturadas que me custa a acreditar que não existem mesmo. Espero mais romances adultos desta escritora.

When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty facade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils... Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? A big novel about a small town, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling's first novel for adults. It is the work of a storyteller like no other.

Savindi Jinasena

Cover Gushing Worthiness: I personally think that the paperback version is a better cover for The Casual Vacancy. It’s one of the prettiest covers I've seen all year. At first when I saw the cover of the hardback version it didn't make sense to me. Moreover I kept thinking in my head “What was JKR thinking?” but as I started to read the book the hardback cover edition started to make sense. I realized that it’s one of those boxes from a voting ballot and as the book progresses the importance of the vote and politics becomes clear. Final Verdict: I personally prefer the paperback version cover, but I do understand what the publishers were going for with the hardcover edition.

Review: 
  
    You must accept the reality of other people. You think that reality is up for negotiation, that we think it’s whatever you say it is. You must accept that we are as real as you are; you must accept that you are not God.
  


If you’re going to read this book expecting it to be like Harry Potter you’re going to be disappointed. Sure the writing style and sentence structure is very similar to the writing in Harry Potter but this novel is anything but that. If you do read this book with the expectation of a book that explores the darker elements of life then you will be pleased.

I'm going to be honest, if I read this book as a teenager-especially as a 16 or 17-year-old I wouldn't appreciate it. After working at University and hearing about the struggles other people go through, taking history courses and being racially profiled just this past July I can now say that I appreciate the darkness of this novel. It deals with racism, class issues, drug abuse, bullying, physical abuse, cutting, teenage angst, homophobia and many other issues society is sometimes afraid to talk about.

Like many people I was under the impression The Casual Vacancy was a murder mystery, while it is a far cry from a mystery novel I do believe we got something better; a social commentary on social disparity.

The story of The Casual Vacancy may not be unique, but JKR's writing is what turns this seemingly mundane plot into a dark, angry, petty and realistic story. Rowling spends a great deal of time establishing her characters and that does prohibit the story from moving forward in the first hundred pages. I can understand why this won't sit well with other readers, but I didn't have a problem with it because as the story progressed, you start to understand how incredibly complicated all the characters are. After the first hundred pages the story moves at a progressive pace; events start occurring to the point where you don't want to put the book down. This book has no happy ending nor does it have a lot of redemption in regards to the characters, making this a read that is most definitely not for the lighthearted. There are multiple moments of swearing induced conversations, graphic physical abuse, sex and rape scenes. It will make your blood boil and leave you with no faith in humanity if you ever had any to begin with, what the book does is it addresses the darkness and social rift that is so present in society today. We may not have the power to completely eradicate certain attitudes in the world, but we have the power to educate ourselves and be more compassionate towards people. I know a lot of people have complained about the swearing and the graphic imagery in this book and I understand the attitude behind it. But then how is it any different to what happens in real life? All you need to do is get on a bus with High School or University Students and probably all sentences of a conversation include at least one swear word. We've already seen the horrors of the Steubenville rape case, the gang rape in India, the horrors of Syria, so all the graphic images in this novel are no less different from reality. Maybe what's so scary about it is that it is so close to our reality. This things may happen to anyone we know and I think that because Rowling gave such intricate details of the lives of Pagford residents its scary to believe that we're capable of such attitudes towards each other.

There are no primary or secondary characters in this book, rather there are just characters who depict a person you may have encountered in your life. All the lives of the characters are intertwined with each other's; sometimes in a close capacity while other times it's quite distant. In the beginning it is easy to loathe the majority of characters because some of them fail to garner any redeeming qualities to their names. As I think about it though, maybe the point was not to like some of them, but maybe to show that they were human. They were real, flawed human beings and Pagford was their reality. The more I think about the characters I think about a quote uttered by Fats 'Stuart' Wall. He says 
  
    The mistake ninety-nine percent of humanity made, as far as Fats could see, was being ashamed of what they were; lying about it, trying to be somebody else.
  


The quote resonates with me because it's so true. There's some part of us that wishes we were a little taller, smarter, skinnier, prettier, hotter, healthier, younger etc. We may not always admit these feelings to family or friends, but it's always the back of our minds.

There is a large cast of characters in The Casual Vacancy. Sometimes it was a bit difficult to keep track of all the Mollisons, Walls and Jawandas, but eventually you start to identify who is who. The characters I pitied the most were: Krystal and Robbie Weedon, Samantha Mollison and Sukhvinder Jawanda. I wanted so much more for Krystal and Robbie. They deserved so much more than the life they had. Their mother Terry infuriated me at times, but in the end she too was to be pitied because she was helpless as her children in the end. At first I wasn't a fan of Samantha Mollison; she came across as pompous, arrogant and self-centered. As we got to know more about her past and familial circumstances, the feeling of pity took over. I think Sam's distaste with Suburbia/Small Towns may mirror our own feelings; the feeling of stagnation and frustration we have with life at times. The feeling of life being sucked away from you. Apart from the Weedon children, Sukhvinder Jawanda was the character I felt for the most. I guess I could identify with her because she was constantly being bullied and was scared of life in general. Sukhvinder's relationship with her mother was another reflection of the relationship gap that could occur between parents and teenagers. I was really sad for her because of the actions she had to resort to find some meaning and stability in her life. It made me wonder how many Sukhvinders are out there in the world. Through flashbacks we got a certain sense of what Barry Fairbrother was like and I genuinely liked him. I liked what he stood for and his death truly was untimely. He's a person Pagford as a community misses and I think he was one who truly understood the disparity between the rich and poor of the town.

The Casual Vacancy ends with the way it began; with death. The ending is open-ended where the reader is left to wonder what eventually will happen to the residents of Pagford. How will they cope with each other when so many secrets have been revealed and acts of scandal committed?

Overall The Casual Vacancy is a realistic and heart-breaking novel that will leave you emotionally drained at times. There's no end message, but an observation of how far we've sunk ethically and morally as a society. J.K.Rowling is an author I want to see succeed because she deserves it and because she's given me so much as a reader. I'm glad that she choose to depart from children's literature and venture into adult fiction because...well can you seriously top Harry Potter? There will always be a comparison to HP if she wrote another book for children. Like Jane Austen Rowling is an excellent observer of society. She understands the nuts and bolts of small town politics perfectly. I can't wait to read more of her future works.

My Rating: 4.5/5

Would I recommend it? Yes, but don't read it in the hopes that it will be like Harry Potter.

I read it years ago but I still can't believe it took me this book to realize there was something... really wrong with JK's politics. Throughout the book I had to stop and think: "what was the point of [event]?"

 "Why would she describe this character in this manner? Isn't this supposed to be a book for adults?" 

"What the hell is this conversation and where is it going?"

 "What is [JK] trying to tell the reader here? There is a lesson but it goes against everything I'd imagine she'd believe". 

But it's all clear now. Shame on me for being so dimwitted.

Rose

I read it years ago but I still can't believe it took me this book to realize there was something... really wrong with JK's politics. Throughout the book I had to stop and think: "what was the point of [event]?"

 "Why would she describe this character in this manner? Isn't this supposed to be a book for adults?" 

"What the hell is this conversation and where is it going?"

 "What is [JK] trying to tell the reader here? There is a lesson but it goes against everything I'd imagine she'd believe". 

But it's all clear now. Shame on me for being so dimwitted.

Tylar M

Quite a soap opera. Almost every shocking thing you can imagine is shoved into this book. I liked up until the last two parts.

Nicole Dykeman

This was a good book. The story lines were interesting, the characters were very realistic and faced problems that lots of people can probably relate to. However, I felt like there were too many characters. The book follows the stories of at least ten characters and it could get confusing sometimes because there was so much to remember. I also thought there was a lot of internal monologue of each of the characters and I could get bored sometimes. It couldn't used more dialogue.

Irene Alegre

I read this because I was curious. I wanted to see what Rowling could do after Harry Potter. I wanted to see if she could pull off something without Harry in it. Harry Potter was about Harry Potter. And Hogwarts. And then Hermione and Ron. And Dumbledore.

The Casual Vacancy is about Rowling, and I loved that. The story is completely different yet it's the same voice speaking to us -with a much more aggressive use of language, I might add. I do like her style. The way she uses humour. It made me smile at some instances, and that's something to be thankful for. She also knows how to describe a character with not that many words and give it a lot of presence. I could totally picture each of the characters, both in appearance, personality and motion, very vividly.

BUT the story was dull and boring. And we didn't need 500 pages to entirely understand the meaning. 300 pages would have been more than enough.

I will surely read her next novel -if she ever publishes again. I will hope she comes up with a better, more appealing plot. I just didn't care for the petty politics of the Pagford community. 

I do like J.K. I will give her yet another chance.

Ally Gagliardo

This book was EXTREMELY slow in the beginning. Like REALLY slow and really boring. There were many times I thought about giving it up. I read 4 other books in between starting this and finishing this. FOUR. That being said, I wanted to stick it out because it's JK Rowling. I felt I owed it to her. And I'm so glad that I stuck it out. It's divided into 7 parts and if you can get through the first 2-3 I believe that you'll really enjoy it. It ended up being an amazing story. However, there are so many characters and stories going on and it's hard to keep track in the beginning. But everything comes together in the end and you won't be disappointed with what you've read.

Charles Siboto

This is the story of a small English town largely populated by petty adults and school children preoccupied by petty small town politics. Everyone in this story is downright crazy on some level. It's a good read though - JK Rowling knows how to tell a story, she's not popular for no good reason.

Alost

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Hai all my readers and readers, 2 days ago i got a fresh copy of the casual vacancy. Before starting the book i thought i must pass through some reviews or news and stuff.(i have copied one of such news to my blog as you can see) I have just shocked when i saw that it's a book for adults means it contains adult content. I cant belive that at once jk can write this way. But the thing is i know her only through the harry potter books. The cover art of simple yellow and red combination. It remainds me of old books. Any way i have started reading the book. The book starts 

"barry farebrother doesn't want to go out for... " this is verymuch like the starting of harry potter and the prisoner of askaban which is "harry potter realy wanted to do his homework..."

from this it's clear that though jk rowling switched to adult's genere, her writing style hasn't change much. But i can't say so. Iam just into it. Let me complete it. A full review is coming.

Yulande Lindsay

J.K. Rowling is an excellent writer but how do you produce a book where not ONE character has a redeeming quality? If they weren't annoying, they were repulsive. Come on!

Melanie Richards

I was nervous because there are so many characters, and it took so long to develop any sort of plot, but good god J.K. Rowling made me bawl like a little child. She has quite a gift for understanding people and is an immensely positive force in this world.

Madhuri Sridhara

I couldn't finish this book; I stopped after reading 55 pages. It's a shame because I really wanted to finish it even though reading each page felt like a chore. 
The main problem with the book were the characters. All of them are so annoying, which is a major defect because this book is basically a character study of the people of Pagford. It's so weird that J.K. Rowling, the woman who gave us Harry Potter and a world filled with vulnerable, deep and such real and meaningful characters would fail at this, but she she does. I went in with expectations of a town with amazing,conflicted people I could relate to but all I got was an irritating bunch who hate each other's guts. 
Another thought I had was that Rowling was trying too hard to make it a novel for adults. 
I'm only reading another one of her books if it has anything to do with Harry.

I CAN'T WAIT

-- 

UPDATE: IT IS SITTING ON MY COUNTERTOP ALL SHINY AND NEW?!?!? IS THIS REAL LIFE OH MY GOD

--

Actual review

Wow. that was

wow

Uh

Alright, so this book is definitely not for everyone. But, aside from the high-strung language, graphic sex and violence, and even the genre-related differences, I think that the real differentiating factor between this novel and the Harry Potter series is the unmitigated pessimism, for lack of a better word to describe it.

See, at the end of the Harry Potter series, while people have died and the world of Britain is still very much war-torn and healing, Harry has emerged victorious alongside his two greatest companions that have been with him from beginning to end. The plot is clear-cut. The characters are all clear-cut. There's no doubt about the fact that Harry is the protagonist, the consummate good guy, and that Voldemort is the evil, unspeakable one whose desire is the disruption of the human race.

Yet, for this book, none of this is apparent. We have so many characters to pick and choose from that we're never sure who is the true protagonist and antagonist. And this isn't a bad thing. We have Fats, Andrew, Gaia, Kay, Miles, Gavin, Mary, Krystal, Tessa, Cubby, Si-Pie, Ruth, Howard, Shirley, Samantha, Parminder, Sukhvinder...

And the list goes on.

Each of them does some pretty horrible and graphic things. And in the end, though hard to imagine, we actually DO get a well-thought-out conclusion that wraps everything up nicely.

Yet there's no absolution for so many of these people; Sukhvinder barely gets anything from Fats, even after months of ceaseless cyber-torment. Parminder only has the schadenfreude that accompanies watching an enemy succumb to a long-plaguing illness of sorts. Andrew still has to deal with his abusive father, and Fats is in such deep shit with his family that I can't imagine anything going well for him within the next few years. Don't even get me started on Krystal and Gaia.

Inexplicably so, however, you, as an impartial reader, get every single side or perspective possible when dealing with the tragic nature of Pagford. You yourself watch the town fall apart, slowly at first, then so quickly and horrifyingly that you can truly empathize with each and every one of the characters. Each character is foiled nicely; you can empathize with Fats and Sukhvinder both at once, with Kay and Gaia, and even with Krystal throughout her horrible predicament.

And then the writing.

If you weren't convinced of Rowling's awe-inspiring talent of piecing the English language together from the Harry Potter series, or if this is your first book of hers (either way, shame on you!), this book will probably do the trick. If you don't like the characters, if you don't like the genre, or if you just hate every little thing about this book and its setting, you just have to enjoy the writing.

One of the most striking aspects of her novel, however, is the unsettling, abstract accuracy of her similes and metaphors. Seriously. Does she have a dictionary for this sort of stuff? She has one scary knack of picking and choosing the weirdest words to give the reader the best image of each character.

HIGHLY recommended to the now-grown fans of Harry Potter or to any adult lit buff, really.

Gabriella Parker

J.K. Rowling really knows how to make you keep turning pages. Like Harry Potter, the theme of the story really revolves around death. A death starts the story, there are some deaths in the middle and around some couple of deaths at the end. I really liked a lot of the characters, especially Samantha and Krystal. I love how Krystal gave me a bad first impression but until I really got to understand her story, it just goes to show that you don't know what someone's going through until you've walked in their shoes. I also liked what Sukhvinder's situation represented and how you really don't know what's happening behind someone

Samantha Huster

The book is great overall. Some of the sections are a little slow because of the numerous characters and backstories involved. It was an interesting change of pace for J.K. Rowling. We are so used to these innocent-ish characters from Harry Potter that these vulgar, complicated characters were interesting. Well-written.

Kelsey Lucero

Overall I enjoyed the book. The ending was sad, but perfect. I still gave it 5 stars, but there were parts of the writing where I felt J.K. Rowling was trying a little too hard to be edgy. It reminded me of a Disney star who wants to shake off their squeaky clean persona and tries a bit too hard.

Robin M Cabana

When I started this book, I was so confused by all the characters and the politics of a small town. It took awhile for JK Rowling to hook me in, but eventually she did. As I read on though and the characters interconnect and you see there are serious ramifications to these little political scuffles, it gets more intriguing.

Nadine 

Read this one back to back and very much enjoyed it. Rowling is definitely an author who knows people - no surprise if you look at her background - including a stint with Amnesty International.

I particularly liked how nuanced her characters were. So much fiction leaves one with cardboard cutout characters who are all good or bad or evil or banal, or greedy or whatever. Here the characters were well rounded with their foibles and strengths. It's a very British novel, but manages to bridge the divide by giving equal weight to both sides of the social strata.

Mary Baldwin

I think very few people can give an objective review of this book. Myself included. I loved Harry Potter, so in turn loved JKR. But there's been many occasions I've fallen in love with an author and out again in the space of two books. 'The Casual Vacancy' is an easy read, definitely not what I expected but not a disappointment either. Some good characters, but nothing to get over excited about.. certainly worth seeing through to the end.

When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty facade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils. . . Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? A big novel about a small town, THE CASUAL VACANCY is J.K. Rowling's first novel for adults. It is the work of a storyteller like no other.

Isa s

J.K. Rowlings first book not written in the Harry Potter Universe. Knowing that this book was different from the Harry Potter books, I read it not was a book by J.K. Rowling but just as another book. So my comparison with those books stops here.

The Casual Vacancy got quite diverse reviews and I was really curious about it. The premise sounds very interesting: The death of a local council member and the consequences his death has for the small town. The now vacant seat in the council needs to be filled and private lives are overturned by the events that follow.

Unfortunately the book didn’t really draw me in until I was nearly finished. The characters (who are going through a lot, so they do have the potential to be strong, believable characters) stayed flat and colorless. Only in the last few chapters did I begin to get a feeling for the characters.
I didn’t regret reading the book, but at the moment I don’t have strong feeling in favor of re-reading it one day, either.

La historia de esta primera obra de Rowling para adultos se centra en Pagford, un imaginario pueblecito del sudoeste de Inglaterra donde la súbita muerte de un concejal desata una feroz pugna entre las fuerzas vivas del pueblo para hacerse con el puesto del fallecido, factor clave para resolver un antiguo litigio territorial.
La minuciosa descripción de las virtudes y miserias de los personajes conforman un microcosmos tan intenso como revelador de los obstáculos que lastran cualquier proyecto de convivencia, y, al mismo tiempo, dibujan un divertido y polifacético muestrario de la infinita variedad del género humano.
Sin que el lector apenas lo perciba, Rowling consigue involucrarlo en temas de profundo calado mientras lo conduce sin pausa a un sorprendente desenlace final.

Una vacante imprevista

Emir Andrés Ibañez

A esta altura creo que todo el mundo sabe o conoce a J. K. Rowling, la autora de la exitosa saga de Harry Potter. Por eso mismo, el anuncio de esta novela después de tremenda saga generó mucha expectativa, sobre todo cuando se anunció también que sería una novela para adultos.

En esta novela, Rowling saca a relucir toda la capacidad narrativa que se tuvo que guardar en Harry Potter y nos da de lleno en la cara con una prosa tan intleligente, profunda y con un vocabulario bastante "elitista". Bueno, de por sí la novela tiene una trama elitista, pero ese no es el punto.

Esta historia gira en torno al revuelo que se genera en el idílico pueblo de Pagford luego de la inesperada muerte de uno de los miembros del consejo parroquial y todas las idas y venidas, complots y estrategias, de los otros miembros del consejo, para decidir quién será el próximo en ocupar su lugar. Todo esto sucede bajo la sombra de una guerra fría entre habitantes de Pagford y los habitantes de Yarvil: Pagford quiere "deshacerse" de Los Prados, una zona de residentes de bajos recursos que asisten al centro de rehabilitación de Pagford (según la descripción del lugar, la gente que vive allí y demás podríamos relacionarlo con lo que en Argentina conocemos como las villas miseria) y que queden en manos de la jurisdicción de Yarvil.

Lo que más se destaca de esta novela es el desarrollo de los personajes: están muy bien hechos, muy bien caracterizados. Las reflexiones, debates y discusiones que suceden están fabulosas, entre esas, debo destacar el debate entre Kay Bawden y Howard Mollison sobre la importancia, o no, de seguir ayudando a los drogadictos. Y la discusión entre la Dra. Jawanda y el viejo Mollison fue ÉPICA.

Los hijos de los miembros del consejo también tienen una parte relevante en la historia. Son los mismo que ayudarán a hundir o a favorecer a sus propios padres en medio de toda esta trifulca, aún cuando tienen sus propios problemas por resolver.

Llegando al final del libro la trama se vuelve más oscura, hay hechos muy tristes y te deja una sensación de impotencia muy grande, porque las situaciones son muy reales.

Retrata muy bien la hipocresía de la sociedad, en los pueblos chicos sobre todo... y muchos otros tópicos fuertes como la violencia familiar, los trastornos de ansiedad y obsesivos-compulsivos, la autolesión, el sexo inseguro entre adolescentes, el alcoholismo, la drogadicción, el tabaquismo y el acoso escolar, entre otros.

En fin, es una novela muy bien hecha, muy extensa, con un ritmo lento y una prosa bastante densa de leer... pero es una novela que vale la pena ser leída. Rowling sorprendió gratamente.

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