And I WOULD, after all, recommend it.
I decided to read a review or two online to see what other people thought and the more I talk about it with friends/read other people's thoughts, the more I think we all agree.
I'm going to paraphrase the good points of one review I read on Goodreads.com because I think the person gave away a little too much info so I'd rather not direct you to it and expose you to a bunch of spoilers.
Basically, if you're expecting a twisted murder mystery or the resurgence of Voldemort, you will be disappointed. That, I think, was my problem at the beginning. I was thinking it was a murder mystery. It's not. Read the synopsis again closely. It's a character-study. She writes in an omnipotent voice (is that the right term?). We are privy to every character's thoughts—so within each conversation we hear both the dialogue and the subtext of most of the contributors. Thus, she does a GREAT job with character development. And she doesn't sugarcoat them either; basically you end up hating almost everyone since we get to hear/read the thoughts that most people never say out loud.
It's a slow-moving dramatic character sketch about how the death of a city councilman affects almost everyone in the town. They drive themselves crazy over who will take his seat, how certain political topics will be handled (since Barry was the leader of the less-popular but arguably more righteous side), and all of these under-the-rug controversies and problems are suddenly thrown into public observation.
It's twisted, unholy, and very "true" to life. The people who say JK was just throwing in porn scenes and curses because she wanted to prove that she can write for adults are dumb. It's a very realistic novel, and in reality, people curse and have sex. It's not that she is throwing around these words and scenes unnecessarily. Everything influenced the story and the character development and I wouldn't consider it excessive.
Read it. It's a little long but an easy read. Slow-paced but short-chapters so you can churn through it pretty quick. And honestly, whenever I put it down, I never had to convince myself to pick it back up—I was continually interested in what was going on, despite being a little confused at first.
2 comments:
OOOOO that sounds even BETTER to me as I am not naturally drawn to mysteries!! Although the political aspect throws me a bit. Still think I'll go for Kiss Me Like a Stranger next as I think it will be an easier transition from my 3 months of Palin.
I definitely agree that KMLAS will be a better transition. And I still like it more than The Casual Vacancy BUT I actually ended up really liking JK's attempt at something other than HP. Don't be thrown by the political thing. It's about a small-town council, not Parliament, so it's a bunch of nobodies trying to pretend like they're important. Far more about the characters than about any stodgy political stuff.
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