The Casual Vacancy group discussion thread -- now, with SPOILERS!

Now that a few of us have had a chance to read Rowling's latest novel, I thought it would be good to have a thread for full discussion. If you haven't read the book, be advised that there will be spoilers here.

First of all, as I said on the spoiler-free thread, I didn't hate the book. It was pretty dark and dismal, and I probably wouldn't have picked it up if it hadn't been by Rowling, as I don't read a lot of adult realistic fiction.

The characters were, I think, the real strong point of the book. They were all thrown at the reader at once, which made it a little hard to distinguish them from each other at first, but I thought it was interesting how my perception of some of them changed over the course of the story. The main instance of this was Barry Fairbrother. He's not very sympathetic there at the very beginning, but as you learn more about him, he becomes more likable. Then again, perhaps that comes of being dead -- maybe we get the idealized version of Barry from his friends' memories.

I found that I liked the storylines featuring the teens better than the ones with the adults -- perhaps because I read too much YA literature? Sukhvinder was probably my favorite character in this book.

Now, a few criticisms:

On a purely technical level, I found that the perspective shifted around abruptly without any clear indicators, sometimes in mid-paragraph. I'd be reading about Miles and Samantha, and suddenly I'd be reading about what Howard was thinking or doing, and I'd have to backtrack to see if Howard was there with Miles and Samantha, or whether the narration had just wandered over to him (and it was usually the latter). I never had this problem with (ahem) other books by this author, so I'm not sure why it was such an issue in this one.

I also thought that the storylines all intersected too neatly. All of the teens had parents who were major players in the plot, and there weren't many tertiary characters -- no casual friends on the outside edges of the story, etc. Even the other council members weren't very much involved. It was just all so tidy, at least in terms of plot. There was only one small child in the entire book and he was just there for a big dramatic episode at the end of the book.

To add to that, I felt that Rowling tackled too many Issues. Drugs? Check. Rape? Check. Child abuse? Check. Political corruption? Check. Bullying? Check. Suicide? Check. Unhappy marriages? Check. Obesity? Check. Mental illness? Check. Teen sex? Check. Cutting? Check. Welfare reform? Check. Shall I continue? Every character was loaded up with secrets and problems, and it just seemed like too much. I think this could have been a shorter, simpler book with just as much, or perhaps more, of an emotional punch.

All in all, I don't feel that reading this was a waste of time, but I'm not entirely sure that I would read more adult novels by Rowling.

I finished (finally) this book a couple of weeks ago. I really wanted to like it, truly. However, it wasn't my cup o' tea. It took me a long time to finish it (I've had it since release).

I agree with foggi that Rowling tried to tackle too many issues all together. It was hard to follow at times, and I found it quite...boring.

When I picked it up I hoped upon hope that she wouldn't fall into the same trap that I have seen a lot of children's book authors who write adult books do. Multiple times I have seen these authors throw tons of curse words and sex into a book to make it more adult. While I know that every day life for people contains these, but I just did not care for that much in my reading material.

#3 -- It does kind of feel like she just wanted to write something as far from Harry Potter as possible, doesn't it? Maybe, now that she's got that out of her system, she will write more enjoyable stuff.

Just finished this book yesterday, and I was sad to hear it end. I thought the character development was so real that I actually knew the people. It was dark, but I could recognize the people from my past - not the drugs perhaps- but some of the other bits. I listened to it and perhaps the changes in voice made it believable.

I did find the characters confusing at first, but once I kind-of heard them grow, I understood who they were. It is interesting how one event sets off such a reaction in so many lives. For me, this was one of the most powerful books I've read in a long time.

I agree with csobolack. This is one of the most powerful books I've "read" in a long time. What a wonderful study of human character. I put "read" in quotation marks because a friend started reading the book, couldn't get into it, so got the audio book and loved it. So I just listened instead of reading. I never wanted to get out of my car!