The Casual Vacancy By J.K. Rowling

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Title: The Casual Vacancy

Author: J.K. Rowling

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Length: 503 pages

Published: 2012

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Brief Synopsis: (Taken from Goodreads) 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?

My Review:

I give this book a 4 out of 5. 

I'm a huge fan of the Harry Potter series, so when I saw that J.K. Rowling was publishing an adult non-fantasy novel, I was...intrigued.

The main plot centers around the political race in a small town after one of the council members dies unexpectedly. The author introduced a ton of characters very quickly. At first, I had trouble remembering who was who and what relationship they were to other people in the story. This truly is a small town, as everyone knows everyone else and their business. Rumors run rampant.

My favorite character was Krystal Weedon. Her whole situation was terribly sad, but she still tried to get through it all. She was probably the most tragic character (aside from her brother, Robbie) in the whole novel. 

The events that occur right near the end of the novel left me speechless. But it was refreshing to have the final pages be a reflection of the selfishness of most of the characters because of that horribly tragic event (I refuse to state what it is because it will spoil things). 

The Casual Vacancy is not a small book by any means. It took every ounce of willpower I had to power through the very beginning and get to know and understand the characters (34 of them!) and their complicated relationships. No one had a perfect life. Everyone had some sort of secret. That was the best part of the whole novel: knowing that the characters were real. Because it did take me awhile to really get into the novel, I had to mark this as a 4 out of 5. It was tedious in places, and confusing at the beginning. However, for the most part, it was a pretty good novel. It's more about the characters and their complicated relationships and lives than it is about the election.

You can purchase The Casual Vacancy through Amazon in either hard copy or Kindle format. 

Have you read The Casual Vacancy? If so, leave a comment and let me know your thoughts! 

Please note: I was not compensated in any way for this review. It is strictly my opinion.