Title: The Casual Vacancy
Author: J.K. Rowling
Format: Hardcover
Release Date: September 27th, 2012
My Rating: 1.0 out of 5.0
Release Date: September 27th, 2012
My Rating: 1.0 out of 5.0
A BIG NOVEL ABOUT A SMALL TOWN ...
When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils ... Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?
When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils ... Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?
My Review:
The Casual Vacancy had the most potential to be a great book, and if you read my review when I got this book and the future expectations I had on this book you would know that there was a lot of glaring problems I had with this book. And I would love to present my first abandoned book to everyone. I just couldn't get past the glaring problems with this book and how horrible it is. If you like slow moving dramas that really just involve a bunch of self-centered morons, this would be the perfect book for you.
This book is just horrible. It involves an empty seat for the town council, I can only assume. But everyone seems too stupid to realize that the seat is up for reelection now. It isn't until halfway through the book that someone realizes, "HEY! we can fight over this seat and an all-out war will ensue and ..." You get the drift I image. It just moved way way too slow for me and I couldn't find a reason to pick it up anymore and finish it. Maybe later, but no.
The characters, oh the characters are horrible. There wasn't one general character that I enjoyed of felt that I would enjoy when I put the book down. It was just a cluster of horrible and even worse they all are so self-centered and delusional it's sickening. All of the characters really just use each other to position themselves better politically or to better their standing with the community. The lot of shallow characters in this book is far from what I expected out of J.K. Rowling. C'mon you can do a lot better, than this.
As well, this is labeled as Adult, and realistically this is no where near an adult book. Its more of a young adult book, with a few mentions of sex and condoms that look like those white grubs you can use for fishing. I hated the labeling of this book, it's not at all what I was expecting. If I could have claimed to be an adult when I was 12 by simply mentioning condoms and sex, than I believe the world would have a lot less teenagers and more immature bastard children running around. This book isn't even close to the label it had.
The environment was confusing as well, it focuses around Pagford and some suburbs. I spent most of my time re-reading the paragraphs trying to understand what was being conveyed. I felt that I missed most of the setting or it just wasn't described in a manner that I could visualize. As well when I finally understood the setting for the character that was speaking for the moment; the character changes. There is no chapters, there is days and in one day nearly every character has a section in which they give their perspective on the days happenings. Its very disruptive to the story and I was left with a complete emptiness when the character swapped. It just isn't something I enjoy seeing in a book, there was no reason to swap that way.
Now when I picked up this book I looked around at fellow other bloggers and reviewers to see what they thought, and generally it's a mixed review. Some love the book and some utterly hate it. I would view my stance on this book less than neutral. I don't hate this completely, I more or less just isn't my style of book and I couldn't get past those issues, and it's generally not just me who has those issues but most of those who dislike this book share the issues.
This book is just horrible. It involves an empty seat for the town council, I can only assume. But everyone seems too stupid to realize that the seat is up for reelection now. It isn't until halfway through the book that someone realizes, "HEY! we can fight over this seat and an all-out war will ensue and ..." You get the drift I image. It just moved way way too slow for me and I couldn't find a reason to pick it up anymore and finish it. Maybe later, but no.
The characters, oh the characters are horrible. There wasn't one general character that I enjoyed of felt that I would enjoy when I put the book down. It was just a cluster of horrible and even worse they all are so self-centered and delusional it's sickening. All of the characters really just use each other to position themselves better politically or to better their standing with the community. The lot of shallow characters in this book is far from what I expected out of J.K. Rowling. C'mon you can do a lot better, than this.
As well, this is labeled as Adult, and realistically this is no where near an adult book. Its more of a young adult book, with a few mentions of sex and condoms that look like those white grubs you can use for fishing. I hated the labeling of this book, it's not at all what I was expecting. If I could have claimed to be an adult when I was 12 by simply mentioning condoms and sex, than I believe the world would have a lot less teenagers and more immature bastard children running around. This book isn't even close to the label it had.
The environment was confusing as well, it focuses around Pagford and some suburbs. I spent most of my time re-reading the paragraphs trying to understand what was being conveyed. I felt that I missed most of the setting or it just wasn't described in a manner that I could visualize. As well when I finally understood the setting for the character that was speaking for the moment; the character changes. There is no chapters, there is days and in one day nearly every character has a section in which they give their perspective on the days happenings. Its very disruptive to the story and I was left with a complete emptiness when the character swapped. It just isn't something I enjoy seeing in a book, there was no reason to swap that way.
Now when I picked up this book I looked around at fellow other bloggers and reviewers to see what they thought, and generally it's a mixed review. Some love the book and some utterly hate it. I would view my stance on this book less than neutral. I don't hate this completely, I more or less just isn't my style of book and I couldn't get past those issues, and it's generally not just me who has those issues but most of those who dislike this book share the issues.
