The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

Ever since Barry's funeral, Gavin had dwelled, with a sense of deep inadequacy, on the comparatively small gap that he was sure he would leave behind in his community, should he die. Looking at Mary, he wondered whether it would not be better to leave a huge hole in one person's heart.

The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling's first book since her best-selling children's books, the Harry Potter series, and has been highly anticipated since the day she first announced she was putting out another book. This is her first foray into adult fiction and had many fans eager anticipating the release date in hopes of snagging it the moment it went on sale.

The question everyone's asking now: Did it live up to the hype?

Unfortunately, no. At least, not in my opinion.

The Casual Vacancy begins with a death. When Barry Fairbrother dies of an aneurysm, the small town of Pagford is thrown into chaos. The town mourns a man who had been thoroughly involved in so many parts of its society and, most importantly, fought for those many of the town's "elite" would rather push away and forget about.

In this book, we are given the opportunity to see through the eyes of many of the town's residents: watching them as they flounder in their own misery and search for what it is they want and who they really are; all the while fighting to fill the vacant council seat Barry left in his absence, each doing their best to further their own agenda, political or otherwise.

I wasn't a big fan of this book. I wanted, desperately, to enjoy it. I definitely look up to Rowling as an author and was disappointed to find that I just couldn't get myself to like this book. Her writing style and wording is fabulous. Even in a book I didn't like, I had to admit that the richness of her writing wasn't diminished in the slightest. Rowling has one hell of a talent there and even a tedious story can't manage to hide that.

On the other hand, like I mentioned, the story is incredibly tedious. The story itself was just hard to connect with, maybe because she came at it from so many perspectives. I mean, the varied points of view gave the full story, so it wasn't very avoidable, but it definitely made it take longer for me to connect with the characters at all.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't terrible. I've read worse. The last fourth of the book was pretty interesting. The conclusion was very cohesive and by then, I had come to know the characters well enough to want to read more about them. But there wasn't much of a resolution and the story over all came out dull in the end.

I would advise most to skip this one, unless they just really want to read Rowling again, which I would totally understand. Her voice, though more mature in the content of this story, is unmistakeable even in a story so drastically different from what took place at Hogwarts.

All in all, I'll be glad when she gets back to writing children's fiction (and YA!), which she has confirmed she will be writing next! I absolutely cannot wait. Nothing will stop me from reading those.

Rating: ♥ ♥ 

But who could bear to know which stars were already dead, she thought, blinking up at the night sky, could anybody stand to know that they all were?