The Casual Vacancy

By: J.K. Rowling

Narrated by: Tom Hollander

Length: 17 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early 40s, the little 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 at first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the town's 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?

Blackly comic, thought-provoking, and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling's first novel for adults.

©2012 J.K. Rowling (P)2012 Hachette Audio

The latest Rowling book, not like Harry Potter.

We have all been waiting for the Rowling book that would come after the Harry Potter series. What has finally appeared, five years later, is well written with well developed characters, but the book itself was disappointing to me. The plot revolves around a man on the Perish Council, (for U.S. it would be town council, I think). The man who is the catalyst for the book takes his wife out for an anniversary dinner in the first chapter and drops dead on the restaurant parking lot from what they assume is an aneurism. But his death starts a whole series of events. There is a perish council election coming up, because of his death, to fill “the casual vacancy.” Whoever is elected will determine what happens next with the money in the perish. The man who died, named Barry, wants them to put more money into a drug rehabilitation program and provide more money for services for those who are poor. But most of the council does not want to even keep the program open. They want to cut back on providing any services to “these people who don’t work” and shut down the rehabilitation methadone program. So this is the backdrop for all the things that happen. We are introduced to amyriad of characters, most of them very unpleasant, with their children, equally unpleasant. The book reminds me of Elizabeth George’s “what happened before he shot her” but it is much more relentless with the most sympathetic character being the ungovernable teenage daughter of a drug addict. It’s also quite long. And if it hadn’t been Rowling, and if I hadn’t liked Harry Potter so much, I probably wouldn’t have finished it. The Harry Potter books were dark, but she managed to put some lightness in them here and there, and the reader liked several of the characters. That isn’t true here. So my final conclusion: the book is interesting but disappointing to me.

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

Originally posted at: A Girl that Likes Books

Why I read this book?

Ever since the book came out I wanted to read it even though it got so many bad reviews from a lot of people. Having it available as an audio book gave me the option to give it a try, without getting the physical book.

What's the book about?

This book tells us how the lives of several inhabitants of Pagford after Barry Fairbrother, a member of the parish council dies.

What about the main characters?

This book has several main characters in my opinion; this "main lines" will tell the story of all at the same time. I found both Crystal and Suckhvinder as different as they are, they were very well written, and I could feel for them more than empathy. I had a bit more of a problem sympathising with any of the adults in the book, since they all seemed whiny and funny enough, behave as teenagers as much as the teens themselves. I found Samantha very entertaining, but even then, it didn't fully click.

Final thoughts

I believe that most of the people who were "disappointed" at this book it was because they were expecting something like Harry Potter...and this is so not that type of book.
Now that we have established this, I will tell you that I actually quite enjoyed the book. For a book with so many characters it was easy to follow what was happening to whom. There is a lot of social critic without being a "soap box" book.

Funny enough this book reminded me of Under the Dome, simply because of how a single event modifies so drastically everyone else in a tiny town. In a way the people of Pagford are also under a bubble, except that in this case is of their own construction.

There were some very crude moments but this brought deeper "humanity" to the characters and by the end the felt quite tangible for me. The end was unexcpeted enough to surprise me, but not out of the blue in a way that would've ruined the whole dynamic of the book for me.

I really enjoyed Tom Hollander as a narrator, his tone is very pleasant and although, as non native speaker, I'm more used to an American accent I had no trouble whatsoever following him.

I wanted to like this but didn't.

Wow this book was hard to finish. The only likeable charecture dies within the first few paragraphs. Everybody else is so self involved that they can't see the damage they are doing to all those around them. The narration is excellent but does not make up for the general meanness on display here. Also I found some of the charectures motivations to be a little weak.

A Computer Glitch Rated This For Me

I might not have written a review, but the ratings for Overall and Story happened through a glitch in my computer while downloading and I don't want to leave the wrong impression. While the performance by Tom Hollander deserves five stars, this is a two star story for me.

I approached this book with nothing but good will for Rowling and an expectation that this would be unlike Harry Potter. What the lame publisher's summary and the pre-publicity didn't say was that it contained significant sexual content and explicit language. It also didn't indicate just how depressing and bleak the story would be.

The problem is that this is the kind of story I usually avoid at all costs. I find no enjoyment in vicariously suffering with others. There isn't a single individual in the story for whom I found a true sympathy--sympathy in the sense of making a connection and pulling for them rather than feeling sorry for them. I read books for enjoyment, entertainment, to learn, to be uplifted, or even to escape. My life contains enough stressors of its own not to need to find more of them in my reading material. I am not entertained by the misery of others . Perhaps as a school psychologist I am more aware on an everyday basis of the various conditions of life described in this book, and need no primer on poverty, drugs, violence, sexual assault, child abuse, bullying, poverty, neglect, weakness, and self-absorbtion of others. I certainly don't desire to fill my off hours wallowing in such miseries.

The two stars I would have given the story are for its being well-written--for what it is, rather than what I wished it to be--and the clear-cut characterizations. I don't think I would want to actually meet any of these people, but I did feel I had a clear view of who they were.

I wish the publicity had been a little less coy about revealing the true tone of this work so that I might have been more prepared. This sort of story simply isn't my cup of tea and I will be far less likely to buy a book by J. K. Rowling in the future. I had hoped to like this book and had been willing to accept something completely different from the author of Harry Potter, but this is outside my ability to enjoy. If this is what Rowling feels the need to write, she's perfectly entitled to do so. I'll exercise my right and not read it. Perhaps her future books will be less grim, but it will take a lot of convincing before I try another one.

Rowling is a great storyteller

Maybe in an attempt to distance herself from our favorite child wizard, the story has a very real, somewhat depressing tone to it.

Rowling reminds us how "unmagical" can people get - the characters of this book are selfish, small, insecure and misunderstood. I believed her, and gulped down this book in a heartbeat.

Highly recommended.

Struggled

I think Ms. Rowling is a master wordsmith however, I struggled with this story. A bit slow and confusing at the beginning. I look forward to her next book though. The narrator Tom Hollander is superb!

chugged along

After having fallen in love with Harry Potter i had jigh expectations that this book did not live up to. It had a slow start but did end with a slight kick but it took 17hrs of book time to get there.

Masterfully told but dark

Masterfully told story with a strong, evocative, sense of place and character. Be prepared for a tragic story line exploring all the ways that parents let down their children and hurts travel the generations. Yikes! But glad I followed it to the...really wish there’d been other possible...end.

Not a happy book, but excellent nonetheless

What did you love best about The Casual Vacancy?

The detail JK Rowling puts into her books. She has a masterful ability to create a complete world and put the reader directly in the middle

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Casual Vacancy?

The dinner party with Gavin, Kay, Samantha, Miles and Mary. Very real. It was difficult for me to listen to because it made me uncomfortable.

Have you listened to any of Tom Hollander’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This is my first Tom Hollander performance. I thought he was brilliant.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

I don't know what the tag line would be, but this book would easily be converted to a screenplay. I'm not sure I would want to be confronted with the difficult topics of the book visually, though.

Any additional comments?

This is not Harry Pottter and this is NOT a book for children. The author was very clear about this in her interviews prior to the book's release. This is also not a happy book. It discusses the haves and have-nots in society and all the ills associated with each. I don't normally read unhappy books because I have a job that confronts me with the ills of society daily. However, this book was excellent. I was amazed at the realism of the conversations and motivations of the characters, which made the book often difficult to listen to. Overall I am very glad I read it.

My only criticism is that I felt the end was a little drawn out and I didn't think all the events were necessary, but I may have been anxious to know what happened with the main characters.

Also, it is a very British book with British terminology. I watch a lot of BBC America so I knew some of the references, but I did have to look several terms up on the internet.

Need a main character - has too many main characte

This book has not just a main character it has many many main characters, it gets confusing following. After finishing the book I am relistening to it, because I know I missed something. There is no real clear plot. There is a great deal of details on all the characters in the book, but who is the main character? Not sure if it would have been better with a different narrator.