The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

I bought this because J.K. Rowling wrote it. I remember being excited about it and hoping it would be as creative and containing all those indescribable elements from Harry Potter. That is not what I got. I started it and didn’t get through 100 pages before sitting it down and leaving it for almost a year. When the 1 year mark started creeping around the corner, I forced myself to finally finish it.

You can read my reflection here.

Here is the summary from the back:

“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 facade 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?”

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