“The Casual vacancy” review by Dorota Ponikiewska

I don’t know what we were expecting from reading J. K. Rowling’s book “The Casual Vacancy.”

Most readers love the Harry Potter series, can read them over and over and never tire of them.

Maybe it was our mistake, because we were hoping to find in “The Casual vacancy” some magic (even casual or accidental).

But the author warns the readers: this is an adult fiction about small town politics, social manipulations, poverty, narcotics, deviant sexual behaviors, and other obscurity of ordinary life.

Still, we were hoping for one drop of fairy-tale.

Then came the analogy: what about if Thomas Harris (best known for writing “Hannibal”) wrote a love story.  Would we want to read it?  Of course! But even his book was the most beautiful love story ever written, we would anticipate seeing at least one gruesome scene in which the groom-to-be devours bride-to-be.

O well….

What is the premise of “The Casual Vacancy”?  There is no conflict in this book, there is no main storyline. There are just group of ordinary people from the small town.  The story starts out with a bunch of characters and setups. We were bombarded with characters, their descriptions, and stories of their past. It is very difficult to keep up with these people and even if we reread some pages (to remember who is who), next chapter moved to a totally different setup with totally new characters. After fifty pages or so, we are totally confused, and the only reason why we are still reading is the belief that there was a purpose for all this miss-mash. The switching between characters even within a single chapter or page disallow Rowling to create one or more memorable characters.She introduces a new person, writes one or two paragraphs about it and moves to the next person. There are not actual protagonists (to love) or antagonists (to hate). Characters in this book, use each other without any regrets or morals, there are scenes after scenes of physical abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, profanity, and rape. 

So, what we liked in this book?

We liked last 50 pages (it is too bad that the author took such a long and painstaking route to get there), and the heartbreaking and painful ending. Even if the ending left us wondering about certain unsolved events.

We liked her writing style: the third person insightful point of view, her wonderful way with words, and the brilliance of her depiction of scenes and dialogs.

Overall, we would recommend “The Casual Vacancy” to any potential reader, but try not to set your expectations too high….