The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
I read this knowing that I liked the Harry Potter series and I love her Galbraith's Cormoran Strike series but outside of those, could she really write? I should have known that the answer was yes without having to read a book to be convinced. This novel is a one-off unrelated to anything else she has written and the back cover of the book claims its her "first novel for adults"...I beg to differ, Harry Potter is NOT just for kids, but that's a quarrel I have with the book jacket writer, not with Rowling.
You can read a summary of the book somewhere else but a quick hit on what the back cover says is this: a man is dead and his place on the parish council is up for grabs. Let the machinations ensue. That not inaccurate per se but really, like any good book, this is a story about families and relationships and the complications that come with both, set with a backdrop of ambition and failure and privilege and desperation.
I flipped through the book just now to see if I had made any notes or curled any pages and I did not. That's a sign that I either did not like the book (which does not apply here) or I was so into it that I did not pause to take myself out of the story long enough to replace my reader cap with my writer cap-high praise indeed. Well written and well plotted, I very much enjoyed this book. It was Rowling's voice throughout but I never once thought "oh, this is just Harry in a different setting".
Haven't read it and need your next book? Put this on the list.
Rating: #3 Enjoyed It Very Much
You can read a summary of the book somewhere else but a quick hit on what the back cover says is this: a man is dead and his place on the parish council is up for grabs. Let the machinations ensue. That not inaccurate per se but really, like any good book, this is a story about families and relationships and the complications that come with both, set with a backdrop of ambition and failure and privilege and desperation.
I flipped through the book just now to see if I had made any notes or curled any pages and I did not. That's a sign that I either did not like the book (which does not apply here) or I was so into it that I did not pause to take myself out of the story long enough to replace my reader cap with my writer cap-high praise indeed. Well written and well plotted, I very much enjoyed this book. It was Rowling's voice throughout but I never once thought "oh, this is just Harry in a different setting".
Haven't read it and need your next book? Put this on the list.
Rating: #3 Enjoyed It Very Much
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