The Brockporter Book Of The Week - The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

I read a couple of the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling but I couldn't really into the magical, fantasy stuff so I was looking forward to Rowling's first adult novel. It's a long soap opera which I enjoyed. It is a beach book although she deals with tough topics like drug addiction, child abuse, marital infidelity, political chicanery, adolescent acting out and bullying, domestic violence, suicide,and grief and death. She does it in an engaging and at times comical way.

The creative tension is built around the conflict between the haves and the have nots and the story is told from an observation of the banal perspective of daily life which towards the end of its almost 500 pages gets tedious. The moral of the story seems to be that nice guys indeed finish last as well as those who do them in. It seems that in the long run no matter what side you're on, you lose and die.

I read the whole book and enjoyed the character development which seems honest and accurate, but overall I don't think I would recommend it unless you have nothing better to do and enjoy voyeuristically watching other people struggle with their problems of daily living.

I give it a 3 on my 5 point scale.

Editor's note:
The Brockporter Book Of The Week is a regular feature of the Brockporter Online News Magazine which appears most Fridays. If you have a book review you would like to share with the Brockporter readers please send it to davidgmarkham@gmail.com