For the last five years I have unofficially been keeping tabs on J.K. Rowling, hoping against hope that she would yet again put pen to paper and spill out her delicious thoughts for all of us to read. Over two years ago she said that she was "very busy writing," and my happiness was assured. I was so proud of her. I guessed that it would be very difficult to venture out on anything new after the success of Harry Potter. Her new work was sure to be compared and criticized heavily, but if she did write anything, it would show that she is simply an author and authors continue telling stories. I was confident that I would stand by her side and love whatever she wrote. I mean, this is the woman who gave us Dumbledore and Hermione.
On my way home from Smith's on the evening of the 27th (there was no midnight release - a bad portent), my new book clutched in my hand, truly the old excitement was flooding through me. I began reading that night and was quite surprised at the five f-words in the first ten pages. Obviously we were expecting some kind of genre switch into "adult literature," but this was pretty extravagant. I kept reading for another 150 pages peppered with profanity, particularly that doozy. After some thought, I decided I could overlook the language because I have lived among members of the desperate demographic that are represented by some of the characters in the book, but some of the scenes in the casual vacancy were nothing but casually pornographic.
How could you do this to us, Jo? I did enjoy the in-depth character analyses, particularly one of the teenage boy questing for identity. She was able to verbalize well the internal conflict that accompanies that stage of life. Did any of you have expectations about the book? On another note, much of the time I stick to Juvenile fiction because apparently I'm not grown up enough to be a real adult ("because clearly 'real' adults can't speak without profanity and only like to read sexually explicit material." - thanks for the quote, Julie!). What do you do about that?
NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! I'd heard the book was a little questionable, but not from anyone who had actually read it. I think I'm just going to pretend she didn't write anything else so that Harry Potter remains untarnished in my mind.
ReplyDeleteAs for her quote, how many adults do you know that love Harry Potter? I know plenty-and it's not rolling in profanity or sexually inappropriate material. I'm disappointed that her opinion of adults is so low.
Sad day. Won't be adding this to my list I guess.
ReplyDeleteJ.K. has let us down. :( sad day. I loved the Harry Potter series. I feel that if she wrote something enticing (and clean) that her future books could become very popular because she is already so well known. She just needs to go back to her basics...I don't know. She should create another series of some sort. :) CONTINUE HARRY POTTER! I want a story of their kids!!! Haha.
ReplyDeleteI'm really bummed about this too. Thanks for the review though, now I know not to waste my time. I was talking to my aunt over the summer about how it is impossible to find a quality book these days. She said she just sticks with the kid's section of the library. I guess with classics like "Anne of Green Gables" and "Little Women" in there, your chances of going wrong are much more slim :)
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