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The Casual Vacancy

J.K. Rowling

Start date: November 22, 2012

Finish date: November 30, 2012

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What Members Thought

Sep 10, 2012 Chris rated it it was amazing

Shelves: united-kingdom, fiction, literary-fiction

J.K. Rowling writes magic whether or not there's anything magical in the story itself. I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end. I'm still trying to figure out why so many people didn't. Rowling creates worlds the reader can believe in. Millions bought into Hogwarts, so there should be no difficulty believing in the small British community of Pagford where everybody knows everybody's business. And it's no surprise that the woman who could create Severus Snape and Dolores Umbridge cou J.K. Rowling writes magic whether or not there's anything magical in the story itself. I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end. I'm still trying to figure out why so many people didn't. Rowling creates worlds the reader can believe in. Millions bought into Hogwarts, so there should be no difficulty believing in the small British community of Pagford where everybody knows everybody's business. And it's no surprise that the woman who could create Severus Snape and Dolores Umbridge could conjure up the totally self-centered Shirley Mollison, the bully Fats Wall, and his victim Sukhvinder Jawanda. Her best character is easily Krystal Weedon, the teenager who lives in council housing with her heroin-addicted mother and her oft-neglected little brother. You can see the forces that shaped Krystal into the girl she is as well as her awareness that there is a chance at something better, if only she can find her way to it. Your heart breaks for her.

The death of a parish councillor sets off a chain reaction of events that rock the community. Rowling slowly peels back the layers of lies in each family. I marked so many places where I loved the images she evokes:

"Naturally Shirley has known, as they slid stock words and phrases back and forth between them like beads on an abacus, that Howard must be as brimful of ecstasy as she was; but to express these feelings out loud, when the news of the death was still fresh in the air, would have been tantmount to dancing naked and shrieking obscenities, and Howard an Shirley were clothed, always, in an invisible layer of decorum they never laid aside."

"Krystal's slow passage up the school had resembled the passage of a goat through the body of a boa constrictor, being highly visible and uncomfortable for both parties concerned."

"She thought of sex with Miles. It had last happened three weeks previously. Her performance was as predictable as a Masonic handshake."

There is plenty of sex, including rape, and liberal use of the f-word throughout. But it does work within the plot. The characters are all pretty much unlikeable, but you do really want to find out what happens to them. The ending may not be to everyone's liking, but I thought it worked overall. I have only one serious complaint about the book, and that is that it was very difficult to keep track of who was who, which kid belonged to which family. Halfway through the book I still had to stop and remind myself who Fats's parents were. The book would be tremendously helped by a cast of characters list.

I've heard rumblings that Rowling is thinking about writing another Harry Potter book. I hope she doesn't. I loved the HP series, and I thought she gave it a brilliant send off. This book proves she doesn't need to. She is the ultimate magician. ...more

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