Once again I am linking up with Heather from Blonde...Undercover Blonde for Book Club!
This week I read "A Casual Vacancy" by J.K. Rowling:
First and Foremost - (and lets just agree to disagree) - I am not a Harry Potter fan. I read the first 4 books when they came out and I just couldn't read anymore, it's not interesting to me. I think it got a bunch of people reading that normally wouldn't so that's great, just not my taste.
But I wanted to see what her adult fiction was like - here the synopsis from Goodreads.com: 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?
My thoughts: There are a couple of things I do when choosing a book that are weird - I never read the synopsis or the reviews first. I want to be surprised by the book, and I don't like outside influence. I read a lot of books based on the cover, or by author. Which is probably why I end up with books I don't necessarily like (but I think that's good - it makes you broaden your comfort zone). This book falls into the category of "ok plot - but all the characters are bad people, and you just don't connect with them, so you don't care what happens" And then when I went to read the reviews for this book, to see if others felt the same on Goodreads, I was shocked to see that literally 100's people "reviewed" this book and gave it 5 stars just because J.K. Rowling wrote it, they hadn't read it. Really people? Or they described it as "beautifully written". I am not in publishing so my opinion is moot, but it is NOT a "beautifully written" book. If it had been by anyone else it would have just been "meh" for most.
But I just started Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn yesterday and I am enjoying it - so yea!
Jasmine
I heard AWFUL things about Casual Vacancy from many people... I never read Harry Potter. Loved Gone Girl though!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like it! I'm 100 pages into Gone Girl it is Interesting!
DeleteI never read Harry Potter (well I attempted to read it in French and failed lol) but my sister is a huge fan. I always buy books based on the cover too haha. I think it's so hard to find a good book sometimes.
ReplyDeleteIt's getting harder to find good books, I don't remember how I did it back in the day, but I didn't seem to have as many "duds" years ago. Maybe it because I read A LOT and I'm running out of material :)
DeleteI've haven't read this, but I've definitely heard a lot of negative reviews of it. Although in positive news, I loved Gone Girl, so hopefully it's one you enjoy as well!
ReplyDeleteWhat is so weird to me is how many people "reviewed" it without reading it - what is the point of that! Gone Girl is definitely MUCH MUCH better!
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