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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Sep 2012, 512 pages
Paperback:
Jul 2013, 512 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Poornima Apte
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Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling's first novel for adults.
When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, 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 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.
The problem with The Casual Vacancy is that the vast cast of characters and all their machinations leave little room for character development. Rowling's characters come across as cardboard cutouts, one-dimensional substitutes for the real thing. Even the situations in the story seem contrived and overly melodramatic – there are very few shades of grey here. Even if The Casual Vacancy might not have fully rounded characters or shades of subtlety in its telling, it finally is an entertaining novel...continued
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(Reviewed by Poornima Apte).
J. K. Rowling grew up in England's West Country, which is an informal term used to embrace the southwestern part of England, the peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean. The West Country doesn't have any rigid borders but generally includes the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset. A looser definition also includes all or parts of the counties of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.
Rowling grew up in the towns of Winterbourne and Tutshill in Gloucestershire. She also spent some time in Chepstow, which is actually in Wales, with suburbs spilling across the boarder into neighboring Gloucestershire. Chepstow also boasts a castle plenty capable of firing up the imagination. These towns, like much of the rest of the West ...
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