J.K.Rowling

[pip]

Mrs pips best mate finished it and she thought it was brilliant(she'd be relatively trustworthy). Great characters and dialougue throughout.

[janet]

So you have read Fifty Shades then

Seen but not read
Casual Vacancy is developing nicely.

[Catch-up]

Just got the notice that I can pick this up at the library. Looking forward to trying it!

[pip]

Finished this Yesterday and it is most definitely not for kids.
Its not a book i would have bought or read if someone else had written it but curiosity meant i had to.
Its a harsh book. Its a bit over crude at times. Its like the author had a list of the antisocial spectrum and was trying to tick them off one by one and in some cases it was done with the subtlety of Ron Weasley at a house elf convention.
I found bits of it difficult to read due to the content. And i'm worried some ill advised parental units might buy this for the kids thinking it can't be that bad when in all honesty it'll warp there fragile little minds.
But I did enjoy the book. For its crudity in parts which felt a little forced Ms Rowling is a good writer and very good with characters. The characters wether likable or not are well drawn and fit into a decent web of a plot . The ending is not pleasant but there is redemptions of sorts mingled with the misery which is core to the book and peaks at the climax.
Worth a read for those curious or who want to be involved in the literary debates . Its a big move from the HP series but its not a bad book .Definitley not one for her old audience

[Catch-up]

Oops. Should have posted this here instead of the "What are you reading" thread:

I'm giving up on A Casual Vacancy. I feel like I gave it a fair shot at 100+ pages in. The writing is not bad, but the story moves so slooooooowwwly. I was surprised it was 500 pages long. The story is just not that interesting.

[Who's Wee Dug]

I did not fancy reading it as I don't think it would have lived up to the hype, anyway I have more than enough to read at the Mo.

[Bouncy Castle]

Reuters:

Promoting her new "adult" novel The Casual Vacancy, Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling finds it amusing that the most famous "adult" fiction of the moment is the erotic trilogy 50 Shades of Grey. But, she says, there's a big difference.

"The difference should be, people have sex in this book but no one really enjoys it," she said of her own book at a reading in New York on Tuesday night.

Rowling prefers to call her latest work a "novel for grown-ups," noting that she doesn't want readers confused into thinking she has moved from the magical world of Hogwarts to something more like E.L. James' wildly popular erotica books.

The Casual Vacancy is set in a small English town where class prejudices are played out and "grown-up" topics such as teenage sex, drug addiction and domestic abuse are addressed. It has hit the top of bestseller lists across the world despite mixed reviews since its release in September.

Asked at Tuesday's event the question many parents across the world are wondering - how young is too young for fans wanting to read her new novel? - Rowling said: "I personally would be comfortable with the right 14- or 15-year-old reading this book," but she discouraged those younger than that.

Rowling encouraged parents to be open to children dealing with fears through literature, and cautioned against sheltering children from certain types of books. It is "very, very wrong," she said, "to censor what a child reads from that point of view."

"If you are saying to someone, the thing that is in your imagination is wrong and dangerous and bad, I think you are saying to that child: 'You are wrong and dangerous and bad,'" she said. "Talk about it, feel it, and then dissipate it. That's the way to go."

Of course, that doesn't mean that young children should be reading The Casual Vacancy, she added. "Well, that would be inappropriate."

She recalled a recent London reading of the new book when a 9-year-old boy was present, and she tried repeatedly to warn the audience that it was a "grown-up" book before reading a particular passage. "The f-word occurred roughly every two sentences," she said, raising laughs from the New York audience.

The seven books in the Harry Potter series have sold 450 million copies worldwide.

In its first six days, 375,000 copies of The Casual Vacancy were sold in the United States and Canada, according to a spokeswoman for publisher Little, Brown and Company.

[pip]

I wouldn't recomend most 15 yera olds read it to be honest. Aside from the content its a bit depressing for hormonal teens .

[Bouncy Castle]

What? Casual Vacancy?

[pip]

Yep

[janet]

I wouldn't recomend most 15 yera olds read it to be honest. Aside from the content its a bit depressing for hormonal teens .

....although many of the principal characters are in that category?
Tricky one that but on reflection I'd say 15 year olds could cope with it. Their world is a tough one these days and we can't keep them cocooned at that age.

Finished this Yesterday and it is most definitely not for kids.
Its not a book i would have bought or read if someone else had written it but curiosity meant i had to.
Its a harsh book. Its a bit over crude at times. Its like the author had a list of the antisocial spectrum and was trying to tick them off one by one and in some cases it was done with the subtlety of Ron Weasley at a house elf convention.
I found bits of it difficult to read due to the content. And i'm worried some ill advised parental units might buy this for the kids thinking it can't be that bad when in all honesty it'll warp there fragile little minds.
But I did enjoy the book. For its crudity in parts which felt a little forced Ms Rowling is a good writer and very good with characters. The characters wether likable or not are well drawn and fit into a decent web of a plot . The ending is not pleasant but there is redemptions of sorts mingled with the misery which is core to the book and peaks at the climax.
Worth a read for those curious or who want to be involved in the literary debates . Its a big move from the HP series but its not a bad book .Definitley not one for her old audience

I'd agree with you there Pip and add that the author also had a few unsubtle, vicious digs at middle class 'Establishment' morality which prompted a toxic review by Charles Moore in the DailyTelegraph (although I have my doubts whether he'd read it all the way through).

[pip]

Chears janet. True that a lot of the focused on characters are mid to late teens and there issues and problems are a huge part of the book. I missed the Charles Moore revue . I'm not suprised that certain reviewers will react like that though

[Who's Wee Dug]

Sounds like a script from Skins.

[janet]

Sounds like a script from Skins.

I'd say that's highly likely! My daughter's going to read the book so I'll ask her opinion.