The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling.

(Little, Brown. September 2012.)

Review by Laura Parish

Parish Counsellor Barry Fairbrother is dead. This has caused a casual vacancy on the Pagford Parish Council. It’s not long before the town is divided into two camps; the people, like Barry Fairbrother who believe that a council estate called ‘The Fields’ should stay part of Pagford and the people who wish to disassociate the estate from the town.

It’s not long before the people standing for election see their darkest secrets posted anonymously on the Parish Council’s online forum and their election hopes are put into question as well as the revelations having an effect with other aspects of the lives of the people of Pagford.  

I am a HUGE fan of the Harry Potter books and therefore was both nervous and excited to be reading this book. I had the opportunity to visit the Southbank Centre and hear Jo Rowling talk about The Casual Vacancy and found that very interesting. Due to that and the hype surrounding its release, I wanted to wait to read it once everything had settled down, (a little like not seeing the films nominated for an Oscar until the ceremony has been and gone.)

Anything she wrote post Potter was going to be a hard sell. Having been placed into a genre that was suitable for a wider audience and creating a series of books that was so well loved, she had a hard task on her hands.

I wanted to like this book. It was hard going to begin with. There were a lot of characters to introduce and therefore, the first few chapters were dedicated to establishing the characters and setting the scene and I found it difficult to stick with. As a result, the first half of the book took me quite a while to read. Politics would also not be my first choice of subject.

The further I got into the book though, the more I started to warm to some of the characters. The conceptions I had of some of them changed whilst reading and although some elements of the ending were as I thought they would be, there were other elements that came as a shock (and were, in places, heart breaking,) and kept me wanting to turn the pages to find out what happened.

The language used in the book is shocking and if you’re not really a fan of certain bad language then I suggest you pick something else.

It was interesting to study the dynamics between the characters and their behaviours towards one another and how the mechanics of a small town could work.

I can believe that the politics and gossip when it’s a small population could be a wall of whispers and speculation and that is conveyed very well in this book – how misunderstandings and gossip can cause a whole lot of trouble.

My advice is to read it and judge for yourself. I personally didn’t mind it once I had battled through the first few chapters but it’s whether you would have the patience to do that.

Having read it, I don’t think it deserved all the negative publicity it got but then it’s back to the point about anything post Potter being a hard sell. It would have been interesting to see what the reaction to this book would have been if she’d used a Pseudonym.

Overall, despite the slow start to the book, I liked it and I would recommend it.

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by

Laura

I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.