[HPFGU-OTChatter] Casual Vacancy

[Sherry Gomes]

Alla wrote:

So I finally read the Other Book :-). Here is the review I left. Maybe those
who read it may share thoughts?

I loved Harry Potter books, I really did, but the last thing I expected from
this book is to be anything like Harry Potter. I expected the book for
adults which has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with reality
of our existence. I expected something along the line of Dickens, along the
line of my beloved Russian classics of 19 century. Based on the reviews I
expected something maybe not as well written, but with similar subject
matter like Dostoevsky.

I am writing all of this to stress that the reason I disliked this book so
much has nothing to do with me expecting something fun, light and
entertaining. I did not. I also want to stress that it is all me, it is not
the book's fault.

Yes, the people in this book have to deal with terrible things. You name it
it is there - abuse, poverty, drug use, more abuse, just plain out marriages
that not working. It is all there, so in that sense it reminded me of
Dostoevsky a little. Do you know what's different? I hated them all. It is
so true that the person that had something worthy in him as a person leaves
the book within first few pages.


Sherry now:
I had a hard time snipping this one, because I agreed with everything Alla
said.

I got the book the day it came out. I did not expect a light magical story
either. Though by book four HP wasn't light anymore. I was confident that
though the story would be different, JKR could still enchant and entrance
with her use of words, humor and character development. I made myself finish
the book, hoping to find something to care about or like in someone, but I
came away dissatisfied. I did not like any character at all, except the one
who died at the beginning of the book! They were boring and dislikable to
the point that I wouldn't have cared if an earthquake swallowed them all,
beyond a superficial, too bad sort of feeling. Rowling has such a knack for
creating multi-dimensional complex characters, and this more than anything
else was what I found so disappointing in the Casual Vacancy. 

In HP, she gave us characters like Harry, Snape, Dumbledore, the marauders,
people who were not cookie-cutter good or bad. Even characters I disliked to
the end, such as Snape, had depth and reasons I couldn't understand. I was
horrified at the way he died. But the CV characters left me with no feeling
about them except that I despised them, one and all. And if somehow, Nagini
had come along and eaten one of them, I'd have probably told her, good girl.

I'll certainly give the next book she writes a try, but if this is how all
her adult books will be, I'm even more thankful for the wonder of Harry
Potter, in spite of some of the outcomes I wished would have been different.