The Casual Vacancy

[FeedMeTV]

I was surprised not to see a thread on this already (unless I've missed it?).

The Casual Vacancy has been out for a while now, what do you think?

I'm not quite half way through yet so I'll come back when I've finished to comment on my final thoughts but so far I like it. It took me a little while to get into, particularly as I was expecting to love it immediately and I didn't, but now that I'm a bit further through I am enjoying it more.

Despite the swearing, I think her style of writing shines through clearly though the subject matter is about as far from Harry Potter as you can get, of course. I would definitely like to finish before I pass any final judgement and though I don't love it yet I definitely look forward to reading it.

 

[biodroid]

I hear its dissappointing. I think fans are used to Harry Potter and expect the same calibre for JK. I always assumed she would carry on writing in the same world as HP. I dont think I would bother with this book. Looks like she is trying to be a literary academic in this book.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

More Miss Marple than literary academic I think.

I am also enjoying it - the story is good, characters are interesting and it is a lot of fun. Swearing and sex don't bother me.

However, I have always read a wide variety of genres and this is closer to my favourite, cosy mystery, than Harry Potter is. It isn't perhaps deserving of selling so well but it is certainly as good as a lot of other best sellers and better than a lot of them.

Her comma addiction is driving me totally up the twist, but that could be because I am editing my own work and watching out for them.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

OOPs I double posted!

 

[Moggle]

Based on buyer reviews on amazon and goodreads, the book is kind of bad. But, it's selling like a motherf*cker on amazon, which surprised me. Who are all these people buying her new adult book just because they liked Harry Potter?

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I think that is normal. A good portion of those caught up in the height of the Harry Potter craze are now grown ups and I personally will try out a new genre from an author who has written books I liked before.

Anyone expecting Harry Potter is going to be disappointed it has a more Romance/Cosy Mystery style to it.

 

[Scott R. Forshaw]

I probably won't read it, but I'm pleased to hear it isn't garbage. It really would bug me to know it'd had fantastic sales, and turned out to be nothing short of toilet paper. I'd much prefer it to be acclaimed on its own merits rather than on past successes.

 

[aliadamir]

It took me about a hundred pages to really be drawn into the story. I think what threw me the most was how many characters she has such personal focus on. In Harry Potter the only person's head you're ever really in is Harry's (sometimes Voldy's by extension). Then in this one there's nearly twenty characters who contribute equally to the main plot. Once I got them all straight. I jotted a character chart so I kept names straight.

I loved the subject matter because it was such a polar opposite of HP. I was so elated to read her teenagers being sexual. I mean come on how many hormone packed teens lived at Hogwarts without parental supervision? Its a whole other branch of her style that shows that a great writer can write for any age group.
I could not believe the kind of violence that she sweeps you into. I caught myself holding my breath with anxiety at least twice. The passage of Andrew Price getting stoned was beautiful. It felt like an intimate moment with Joanne. I picture her taking a hit and leaning forward with her pen in hand, drafting the way it feels.

And the huge left turn it takes towards the end!!!! I don't know who read this book and thought that it could even be remotely terrible is preposterous. Its not Harry Potter, but I really don't know why anyone expected it to. J K said herself that it wasn't going to be remotely similar. They only cross over I saw was the name last name Knox which appeared once. (Knox... get it? Lumos... Nox... Knox haha) and even that only appears once.

 

[summeriris]

I enjoyed this book a lot. It's not Harry Potter in any way, but I didn't expect another Harry Potter book. I found the ending...well I cried.

 

[endless]

I read in some magazine that it was a book from adults whom in their childhood read HP, so i thought it would be similar, at least in the writing style...

I hadn't read it though, so as soon as i read it i would post my opinion. But i find encouraging that summeriris cried at the end of it.

 

[Dozmonic]

It didn't sell anything like as well as expected and, to be honest, I can see why. I chose not to finish the book because I didn't find it interesting or enjoyable. The writing quality and style was no worse than some big sellers out there, the genre and topic just wasn't for me. Thankfully it was a free work copy I was reading

 

[FeedMeTV]

I enjoyed this book a lot. It's not Harry Potter in any way, but I didn't expect another Harry Potter book. I found the ending...well I cried.

I wasn't quite expecting the ending. I actually think it's worth reading just for last couple of chapters.

 

[simonm]

People talk about the Harry Potter books as if they were all to the same standard. But for me, the first four books were excellent, but the last three were poor. Mostly just bloated. And the story line lost some of its focus.

Haven't read The Casual Vacancy yet. Got started, but then my wife nicked it.

(That was supposed to be in reply to AnyaKimlin's post.)

 

[Grimward]

Received it as a Christmas present last Dec. 25th, and read it a little bit at a time until I was about 75% thru, then (because I was trapped at a car dealer waiting for some work on my wife's car to finish!) finished it in one fell swoop. I also was very surprised by the left turn at the end, and it gave me much to ponder. That experience alone was enough for me to enjoy it, but I will add that Rowling successfully snares the reader (me, anyway), albeit not in the first 100 pages, as noted previously. After the Potter books it's as if Rowling looked at this project and said, "Hurray! Room to breathe!", then proceeded to hatch 4 zillion sub-plots and re-assemble them like a massive jigsaw puzzle. And while there's absolutely nothing like magic in the plot, it (really!) doesn't need such a construct. I give it a 4 out of 5 stars, with my thanks to Rowling for an enjoyable story.

 

[CrumpleHornedSnorkak]

I really liked it. It took me a while to get used to her lovely writing having swears and sex. But once I got over that, I found it really interesting. It was quite depressing, and found some of the subject matters hard to deal with. The ending made me cry as well. But, I would have been disappointed if it hadn't, I would have thought she had lost her touch. JK, to me, is just so great at writing characters. They are just so believable, well, to me anyway. I did find it hard to get to grips with the amount of characters though, but that is probably because I am a bit slow.. Ha!

I think that the problem is, it was never going to be as good as Potter, and I think she knew that, too. I'm just glad she wrote what she wanted to write, because I think that, after seventeen years of writing what she had to write, she deserved to indulge herself. And lets face it, it's not like she needs the money, and I honestly don't think she would have been that bothered if she had only sold five copies.

I do get slightly annoyed when people say it didn't/doesn't deserve to sell loads of copies. Lets face it, she is pretty much the worlds biggest selling author, of course it was going to sell loads. And I think a lot of people had too high expectations.

Anyway, I look forward to reading her next book, and I hope it's longer than a stand alone novel. I am a fan of the book series!