I’ve been a big fan of JK Rowling’s since 2000. That was the year that I first discovered Harry Potter and because of that, I became the avid reader that I am today. So when I heard that JK Rowling has written a new novel but this time for adults, I knew that I had to read it.

And that novel is The Casual Vacancy. It tells the story of the small village of Pagford and its surrounding areas like Yarvil. We are introduced to a core of five families that are core to this novel: The Mollisons, the Walls, the Prices, the Jawandas and the Wheedons.

But what sets the whole plot of the novel in motion is the sudden death of Parish Councillor Barry Fairbrother and the fight to get his empty seat.

Major themes in the novel are class, politics and social issues like that of drugs,prostitution and rape.

Class being that the Mollisons are considered Pagford royalty while the Prices, the Jawandas and Walls are considered middle-class while the Wheedons are empoverished.

Basically someone in each of the families mentioned with the exception of the Wheedons either have someone on the Parish Council or wants to run for Barry’s seat.

And there are some people within each family that don’t want their loved one to run so create havoc on the Parish Council website by posting under The Ghost of Barry Fairbrother some of the family member’s deep darkest secrets.

There is more to the plot but if you plan on reading the book I don’t want to spoil more than I already have. But, my problem with the book that when I first started reading it there were just way too many characters to keep track of. Apparently there are 34 major characters in this novel. But I think the most sympathetic and barely so is the one of Krystal Wheedon who lives with a drug addict mother who can not take care of herself let alone Krystal and her 3-year brother Robbie. Krystal is barely sympathetic because at times you feel sorry for her life but then she does something to another character that you just stop caring for her.

I didn’t mind the very blue language and some explicit scenes of drug use, sex and her vivid description of squalor but I felt that Rowling was writing that way to say “Hey, look at me! I am writing an adult novel and not a kids novel. Narry a wand or Time Turner in sight.”

Since Krystal was barely a character I could feel something for, I felt absolutely nothing for the other 33 characters. They were all pretty much unlikeable and there were some that Rowling could have fleshed out a bit more like Parminder Jawanda or Tessa Wall or Ruth Price.

For Rowling’s first attempt at an adult novel, it wasn’t that bad but there was something a bit missing in this novel that was in her Harry Potter series; she didn’t capture me right away with this novel. One week into reading The Casual Vacancy and I barely read 100 pages (the book is 503 pages long) but I forced myself to read the remaining 403 in two weeks before I had to return it to the library. If I have to force myself to read a novel that is neer a good sign.