Will J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy Ever Live Up To Harry Potter?

Earlier this week J. K. Rowling announced that her first novel after Harry Potter will be called The Casual Vacancy, and will have a release date of September 27, 2012. Harry Potter defined a generation; it was a series that led children to read who otherwise wouldn’t. Now with the release of her highly anticipated first adult novel the question on everyone’s mind is, will it live up to the hype of Harry Potter? Unfortunately, I believe that if people try to compare the two they won’t be pleased at all, as the novels are polar opposites of each other. First of all, The Casual Vacancy is an adult novel about the death of Barry Fairweather, a forty-year old man, from the mysterious town of Pagford. The younger generation of Potter readers will find this incredibly hard to relate to, and while they may appreciate it as a book, they won’t feel the same connection to the characters. Perhaps the most important difference between the two is that The Casual Vacancy is not a fantasy novel, no magic whatsoever, which I admit will be almost impossible for me to cope with. Rowling created an entirely unique world from our own with Harry Potter, and it wasn’t just a book series, it was the story of a generation. There won’t ever be anything like it again, and even J. K. Rowling herself will find it impossible to recreate, however, I also don’t believe that she’s trying to recreate it. I believe that The Casual Vacancy, will be a fantastic novel, I mean Rowling is still a fantastic writer no matter what she’s writing about, and I can’t wait to read it. However, comparing it to Harry Potter would be like comparing apples and oranges, simply impossible.

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