Book Review: The Casual Vacancy

Being an avid (avid being an extreme understatement) fan of the Harry Potter series I would be lying if I said I didn’t have high expectations for J.K. Rowling’s first adult book since said series.  Perhaps this is why I found myself having extremely mixed feelings about the Casual Vacancy.  It seemed that in an effort to write something as opposite as Harry Potter as she could J.K. Rowling conjured up the Casual Vacancy.  Not only is it an adult book (extremely adult, not for the faint-hearted), it is as far away from fantasy as it could be.  It is almost so opposite of Harry Potter that it seems deliberate. 

            J.K. Rowling goes into heavy detail with every single character in the novel, which I usually love, but the characters in this book are dark and depressing people.  For the most part they are selfish humans with very few redeemable qualities.  Usually in books I become enthralled to the point where I cannot put it down and I start to ignore things like laundry and my child (kidding).  Reading this book felt like a chore at times in the fact that I had to navigate through all of the elaborate back stories and try to keep each character straight.  Basically it is the story of how a town fell apart after the death of one citizen, Barry Fairbrother, who was holding the town together in more ways than one. 

            One aspect I did enjoy about the Casual Vacancy was the writing style of Rowling.  Her ability for description and observations about human nature reminded me pleasantly of why I fell so in love with Harry Potter.  Despite the darkness and rawness of the book I did notice a few underlying positive themes.  The most prominent that I noticed was the importance of family.  As much as the characters were appalling at times they still supported and cared for their family when it mattered most.  As much as I wanted to fall in love with this book, I just couldn’t.  J.K. Rowling’s talent shines through the mundane storyline and characters and makes me hope that she will continue to write in the future.  Next time, please, choose something a lot more interesting to write about.  

Reader Beware:  Once you start you might not be able to stop no matter how unpleasant the journey.