Saturday, 6th October was my deadline to finish this book. M glad I made to the deadline.( Patting my back). Before giving the review, I'd like to give u sum tips on how to read a famous authors book.
Most of them must have picked up this book just cuz its by J.K Rowling , thinking it to be sumthing like Harry Potter. But trust me, This not even close to Harry Potter. Its not even murder mystery. Not all book by JK Rowling is Harry Potter. I had the same experience with Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, to name a few.
The Casual Vacancy is Simple and Plain. At first I found it a bit confusing with too many characters introduced in the beginning, i was in the middle of the maze and was hoping to get out successfully which I did. Casual Vacancy is not for everybody. I have seen people, heard people who quit this book after 60-100 pages. They found it very hyped, disappointing, and heartbreaking.
The characters in this novel are very real, very touchy, with all their ups n downs they gains the readers sympathy. For me this was a complete and absolute closure, cuz it left me with a smile on my face. A book which leaves a reader u with a smile on their face is a sign of a good book.
a man on a small-town council dies, and the rest of the book deals with what happens when heads bash in the election to re-fill his seat. A fine synopsis, to be sure, but since this book is only 20% about this plotline and 80% about the characters, such a synopsis fails to do the book any real justice.
This is because in terms of a cohesive plot, that really is the gist of this 500-page novel. Barry Fairbrother, who holds a seat on the Pagford town council, is in the midst of dying when the story begins. What happens throughout the rest of the book revolves around a number of other families in town as the stage is set to choose Barry's replacement, but it is the details about and interactions between these families that really make this book what it is. Relationships between husbands and wives, parents and their (adult and teenaged) children, students and their teachers, and council members and fellow council members take center-stage in this sprawling tapestry of a tale.
It's a point-of-view novel, so the character focus is constantly shifting as the full extent of characters' relationships to one another are slowly revealed throughout the book. In this, Rowling succeeds in creating both incredibly fleshed-out characters and a level of mystery, and both of these created more than enough enticement for me to continue reading. The characters themselves are largely unlikable and petty people, but in realistic ways that allow the reader to sympathize with (almost) all of them despite the dislike. Pretty much everyone in this story is fairly miserable to some degree, but that misery is very human and lends to a degree of universality. This in particular is what makes the book such a successful venture.
Overall , its a nice read. I would recommend leaving any and all Potter-based expectations at the door when reading this book.
Happy Reading !!
