The Casual Vacancy

First of all Please give it a try ... It's not fair that most of the "One Star Ratings" are just based on the first couple parts of the book which -I admit- a real exhausting read specially the first part which is over 170 pages but afterward it's really deep, emotional and interesting story.Secondly, The Casual Vacancy's really an extreme opposite of the Harry Potter series and it's unsuitable for some of the Harry Potter's readers so it's also unfair to be reading it expecting it'll be the same kind of entertaining as Harry Potter's and here's why..1- Ironically the Harry Potter Series starts with the boy who lived, while this one starts with the man who had died. It's funny how Rowling deals with life and death. As Harry's being alive was what made the novel. The death of Barry Fairbrother was what has affected the lives of residents of the small city "Pagford" and every character through the novel and affected their motivations.2-It's not about magic at all ...It's realistic, raw, ugly most of times, unpleasant life. And that's not bad thing since it's a totally different genre ... and Rowling is really awesome in drawing the life of small town, its history and the people living there whether the rich, the middle class or the poor.3-There's -almost- no mystery events at least for us -as readers- only some parts of the ghost's posts plot. But it's not bad since there are many hidden parts at every character that was really fun to discover in further read and learn more about their lives.4-There's no actual Good Vs. Evil Plot. There's no Evil at the whole story and no pure good person either. At some points you'd feel the character is really bad, awful, arrogant and hypocritical and the same one you'd find them later just a victim of their terrible circumstances. That's why when you first meet a character especially in the first Part - which is over 170 pages- you'll find out that you really dislike and can't feel sympathy toward the characters. For example:Krystal Weedon, First impression that she's an awful teenager, you'd even feel it's weird that last thing Barry did was writing about her for the newspaper.. But you can't help notice that she's a true heart-breaking girl trapped in her terrible circumstances.Also Kay when first introduced from Gavin's point of view was a terrible messy lady, but later you'd find out that she's not that bad. , she's a sincerely caring woman after all, away from the hypocrisy that existed at other characters.I believe that all of the characters are in their own shade of gray, there's no black and white... not totally good or totally bad except a character or two that more into the black side. That's exactly how people are in real life.5- In Harry Potter series the whole story is from Harry's point of view (POV) except 5 chapters from the whole series. It's totally the opposite here the book is in 7 parts every part got many chapters each chapter coming from one of the characters' perspective, even sometimes it switch from a character to another at the same chapter.. Which many reader find it's bad and a weakness of the novel .. But it's not bad at all , it may be confusing alittle but the novel introduced so many characters so quickly. So it's better to get a wide perspective to learn about each of these characters, rather than just one, and to learn more about their lives and past. Rowling's writing skills was in real test here and I believe she did it right. Especially at the last Part which wasn't in chapters. It was really amazing. It's like a journey that I've really enjoyed after all.6-For sorry the language is so much "tougher" than you'd imagine the Harry Potter author would write, I was in shock when I've read it and her statement:" "There is no part of me that feels that I represented myself as your children's babysitter or their teacher. I was always, I think, completely honest. I'm a writer, and I will write what I want to write."However, the language is not un-common from the middle class, even the higher one that presented in the story.There is one common point between The Casual Vacancy and Harry Potter series which is The amazing friendship between the adolescents, their romantic interests the bullying which drawn here in amazing way , the adolescents characters and their relationship issues with each other or with their parents was a one of the basic plots at the novel and the most well written one and some how the most heart breaking .I know it's not a real review But to sum up what I feel about the novel, without spoilers ... It's a Journey into realistic characters, in a small town after a certain event... When you finish that journey you'd may feel the tragic ending left u heart breaking BUT the very optimistic scene by the end -although it was like a flash back- will cheer you up and there's a touch of sweet hope that presented at the final part with some changes in a character that lead to peace after all. And without more spoilers the ending really will leave a nice feeling after all and I'm sure you may back to re-read the book in more appreciation.P.S. When I start part 3 I was totally into the characters so when I tried to re-read the first part at least the character introducing parts and find out it's not that bad you should try it as I've said before the first part is exhausting read just at the first read.P.S.2 Try to imagine your favorite cast for the characters for example I don't know why the beginning made me recall "Desperate Housewives" so I mix American cast of the show with the some adults and the adolescents from Harry Potter cast except for Krystal was Miley Cyrus in my mind.

===============REVIEW SUMMARY:===============A highly dramatic, very cathartic, character-focused drama with lots of small-town gossip. I enjoyed it and recommend it!========DETAILS:========I am a big fan of the Harry Potter books, so I wanted to read this one, especially after seeing a fascinating interview with Joanne Rowling in the New Yorker Magazine. I was especially interested after seeing her make the statement, in that interview, that she had forced herself to keep the details of romance out of the harry potter books because she'd felt it wasn't appropriate to mix realistic romance and magical creatures. And so, she said, she wrote this book in exactly the way that she wanted.========For the benefit of Harry Potter fans, the biggest differences between this book and Harry Potter are: (A) Level of Suspense and (B) Negativity.(A) Level of SuspenseIn contrast to the Harry Potter books, which I found to be extremely suspenseful, "Casual Vacancy" is very slow paced. After you have read it, you might look back and think that she could have begun or ended the story at multiple points before and after the story's timeline, since all the plot threads meander along slowly. The suspense, for me, picked up greatly at about the 66% mark, where lots of dramatic scenes start to occur. However, the first two thirds was difficult for me to read as there are a lot of characters with a lot of detailed little thoughts and points of view that you have to soak up before the plot can start moving.(B) Negativity.Also in contrast to the Harry Potter books, which might be described as "dark," the atmosphere of "Casual Vacancy" might be described as "abysmal" or "pitch black." For the first two thirds of the book, almost nothing good happens to any characters. Some children are cruel to each other, some are cruel to parents, while other parents are cruel to children, and each other. All the characters start out as either cruel, sad and pathetic, or both. I have a hard time with books if there is no one to be sympathetic to, and so I found this extremely depressing. However, by the second half, the characters "Andrew", "Samantha", and "Sukhvinder" had emerged as reasonable and flawed yet sympathetic people.=================My Criticism:=================I enjoyed the book, and found it most enjoyable when I visualized it as a slow-paced TV drama, focusing on gossip among a small group of families.If I were to critique it as though a peer had written the book, these are the points I'd bring up:===========1 - There are not too many characters, but the deep thoughts of a large list of characters are all explicated in great detail, and I feel this isn't necessary. While they are interesting in how detailed and relatable all their interior worldviews are, I feel that ultimately (a) this slows down the plot too much and (b) characters might be more interesting to watch if you only knew the inner thoughts of a few of them and had to guess at the rest.2 - A lot of the characters, specifically the ones identified as living in poverty, had their dialogue written with such strong accents (often, the majority of letters in words are removed) that I initially thought they had speech impediments or mental problems, until I realized that that was just their accent. This took a long time to get used to, and I ended up feeling that lighter indicators of these characters' accents would have made them easier to understand and more importantly, easier to relate to.3 - The book feels like it has a big political dimension. It's in favor of the government having a 'social safety net' for the poor, and other leftist ideas. This is totally fine and I myself agree. However, it was just awkward that in one of the penultimate chapters, one character takes a bold, righteous stand against teenagers using anti-LGBT slurs, and then in the final scene, which is clearly supposed to be positive and triumphant, anti-LGBT slurs are used repeatedly. Anyway I thought the political dimension was fine, it was just that the final scene felt awkward.4 - The "Samantha & Miles" conclusion didn't totally make sense to me. Samantha's epic frustration disappeared only because Howard had a heart attack? I didn't get it.

I bought it because I LOVE JK Rowling. Not her best novel but it's a good read.

Habiendo leído hace años "Harry Potter" creí que el primer título 'maduro' de J.K. Rowling iba a tener la misma sustancia y personajes inolvidables. Me equivoqué de manera terrible. Normalmente tengo mucha paciencia a los libros (cosa aprendida al leer a Umberto Eco) pero en este volumen no pasa nada ni a las cien páginas ni a las trescientas, lo único interesante es la muerte que desata la historia y uno o dos arcos argumentales dentro de la misma. Lo demás es paja y una avalancha de personajes y situaciones totalmente prescindibles y olvidables.

What scrutiny J K Rowling gives to the ordinary and extraordinary lives in this book. With waspish observations, laugh out loud and cry out loud moments. Very real - we all know these people, and we have all been guilty of their crimes and their prejudices. Brilliant

This is a very engrossing, beautifully written novel with enormously interesting characters and a complex & winding plot most cleverly structured. A bit of a social commentary a la Austen for modern times. Highly recommended.

Llegó muy rápido, pese a que tiene muchas páginas es muy compacto, lo que se agradece ya que lo quería de bolsillo. El libro es genial, me encanta el vocabulario, sobre todo el rango de léxico que usa JK Rowling, merece la pena cogerse la V.O.!