I consider myself among the biggest Harry Potter fans. I have read the books, seen the movies, been to the memorabilia exhibition and even attended the final red carpet.
That being said, I was beyond excited for J.K. Rowling to release her first novel following the Harry Potter series, titled “A Casual Vacancy.” Rowling is an incredible author and storyteller, so I expected to be impressed by the new book.
“A Casual Vacancy” is set in the small town of Pagford, England.The story centers around the happenings of several families in town who are all connected through various people or events. The father of the Fairbrother family, named Barry, unexpectedly dies on the way to dinner one night, leaving a vacancy on the city council. Following his death, several men in town begin vying for the open spot, leading to drama and complications in town.
Between “the ghost of Barry Fairbrother” posting on the city council’s website bashing one of the men running for city councillor to the mysterious and out of control antics of the children of the families, Rowling does not sell us short on interesting story lines. She upholds her reputation as an excellent author through intricate individual plots of each family. It never ceases to amaze me how she comes up with the things she does; that is where her true talent lies. The story lines of each family are woven together in a way that they are all connected yet do not all interact with one another. In that aspect, I was impressed.
Beyond that, I cannot say that I am a fan. I had an extremely difficult time convincing myself to continue reading. Although there are interesting parts in each family’s plot, the point of the entire book was uninteresting to me. I had no desire to find out who won the city council spot, which appeared to be what the entire book revolved around. There were so many minor characters and jumps from one family to the next that I struggled to keep all of the characters straight and occasionally had to backtrack to remind myself who a person was.
In addition to a confusing and boring plot, Rowling used alarmingly vulgar language and obscenities throughout the book. I was aware that this book was directed toward an adult audience and would obviously not have the same ideas and language that were used in Harry Potter, but this was entirely unexpected.
It seemed to me that Rowling was trying so hard to prove herself as an author outside of the young adult audience, that she really overkilled it. It almost took away from the story itself when a character went off on a tangent about something explicit or got into an argument with another character that involved a lot of harsh language.
All in all, I was extremely disappointed with “A Casual Vacancy.” I had high expectations for the book because of the respect I have for Rowling through Harry Potter, but it turned out to be such a let down.
The novel did not knock her off of the pedestal I have her on because I am honestly not sure that anything ever could, but it definitely made me wish she would have just stuck with Harry Potter and written a book eight.
