The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

Year Published: 2012
Publisher: Little Brown
Pages: 503
Rating: 

A BIG NOVEL ABOUT A SMALL TOWN ...

When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the 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 parish 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?

If I can describe this book in two words, it will be DRAMATIC & UNPREDICTABLE.

This book is amazing! now that I have read this book, I am confused on why it has such a low-rating (based on GoodReads). Well I think it depends on the reader's preference. If you expect smth similar to Harry Potter, you better stay away from this book. It's far far away from it, not even half millimetre close.

If you want to read this, you need to be open-minded and ready to be blown away.

There are three things that I love the most about this book; The Characters, The Endless Drama (Story-Line) and The Feeling of you-have-no-idea-what-is-going-to-happen (Unpredictable).

The characters (for me) were the selling point of this book. They were so rich! It felt like they were real! Rowling's writing style is so vivid and realistic, so it allowed me to feel the emotions of those characters. It was crazy!

The Endless Dramas (story-line), I was not kidding when I said it was dramatic. It brought the meaning of dramatic to a whole new level. The death of Barry Fairbrother triggered multiple dramas in the small town of Pagford. These multiple dramas were so complex, dramatic and different but somehow they were all connected in a strange way but made-sense! And the writing was flowing easily, it felt like I was watching a drama TV series that dragged me for seasons of heartache (in a very good and realistic way).

and it was so UNPREDICTABLE! This is one of among very few books that until the end I could not see or guess or predict what will happen. It was surprising until the end.

phew.. I can tell you that it was such an emotional roller coaster.. I love it and this is definitely one of my faves. I voted this as the best contemporary fiction in 2012. <3