The Casual Vacancy

"Glad I read it, but it’s not one that I’d read again. "

"If this is what real life is like in contemporary England, it's no wonder Rowling developed such an active fantasy world. The town of Pagford basks in smug gentility, while strenuously resisting any association with the adjoining lower class development The Fields. When a beloved Parish Council member who has been fighting to support The Fields dies suddenly, the ensuing power vacuum sucks the community into a cycle of recriminations and retribution. Despite its idyllic veneer, Pagford is a nasty little place: peopled by gossips, thieves,cyberbullies, emotional abusers, drug addicts, alcoholics, adulterers, teen cutters, racists...in short all the evils they mistakenly attribute to an inferior outside world. Rowling creates a colorful and realistic cast of characters, but the relentless escalation in pure meanness (the only truly decent character dies in the first few pages) makes this a tough read."

"Interesting book with an odd ending but the movie is completely different from the book. "

"I felt a little rebellious when I decided I was going to read this book since I had heard it was so inappropriate. So when I started reading I kept thinking <i>Okay, this is gonna get worse, just keep that in mind.</i><br/><br/>And did it? No. Not in my mind at least.<br/><br/>Then again, I read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11507508-los-cachorros?from_search=true">Los Cachorros</a> and novels/stories like it when I was in Elementary School/High School. I'm not affected by swear words and vulgar language in print (and even less in English since it's not my native language so I didn't know that "bad words" were bad until I had to learn they were. I watched movies and listened to songs and unless I looked it up or someone pointed it out to me, I didn't know what was a swear word so I'd use it. Sometimes I still have trouble with what I should(n't) say. Ask my husband.)<br/><br/>I went through the first 200 pages feeling like I had decided to start the book so I needed to finish it, no matter how boring and way too detailed (setting not content-wise) it became. And then around page 200, I started caring about the town. Krystal's story was the first one that caught my attention fully and I read just to find out more about her life, but without realizing it, and once I got all my characters straight (there are so many!), I actually wanted to know what would happen to all of them.<br/><br/>The people are bad. I don't think there was anyone I truly liked, except Robbie (bless his heart), and Gaia and Sukhvinder were okay I guess. But the marriages, the couples... No one had a good solid marriage and that was kind of a downer. I don't live for HEA endings but I like having something happy at least, like a small ray of hope, not necessarily in the ending.<br/><br/>The book has some political issues that even though at first I just skimmed through, later in the story, I started giving them more and more thought and there were some good points shown. My dad grew up in a small neighborhood in Peru and his family was really really poor, so some of the issues related to poverty kind of hit home for me.<br/><br/>Oh, I guess I should mention that I thought that the sexual scenes/descriptions were a lot more manageable than I was expecting. Nothing that made me think I needed to put the book down and never pick it up again. (If you had read the books they made me read in High School... Look up Mario Vargas Llosa, famous Peruvian writer, awesome (but quite vulgar) books.) And I'm not going to lie, the F-word is everywhere.<br/><br/>I thought it was a very well-written book. Good character development, even though, like I previously mentioned, they were not likable people. Great insight into human nature. Maybe that's why I didn't like many of the characters, because their stories make the world seem like a bad place in which good things sometimes happen. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that is actually very true.<br/><br/>In my opinion, this is a very sad but eye-opening story, with a sad ending, which I loved."

"<br/> <br/> It' a book about people. I liked it. I would buy another of JK Rowling's grown up books."

"Boring read."

"Won’t be reading anymore of this author’s work for personal reasons."

"Captivating and extremely well-written! J.K. had me on the edge of my seat! The story takes a second to develop as there are a lot of storylines to introduce, but once established, the book takes you on a wild ride!"

"very adult and very depressing"

"This book was so hard to get into at first, too many characters and overlapping plot lines that seemed unimportant. I was especially discouraged by the chapter dedicated to the background on the Fields. Yes, I gathered it was important but it felt like I was reading a history textbook. Yawn. Eventually, the plot picked up speed and actually felt like it was heading somewhere. I think it simply took too long to introduce the plethora of characters. I can honestly say though, that I had an idea of where the book was headed..and I was quite wrong."