Looking Forward: The Casual Vacancy - J. K. Rowling

Five years after the final installment of the beloved Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling has ventured in a very different direction. One week from today will see her first novel for adults, and it could not be further away from the fantasy world of Hogwarts. Being J. K. Rowling, she has let little slip about The Casual Vacancy, and the only information available is the same press release synopsis:

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? 

 I'll be honest: my primary thoughts on reading this synopsis were far from hysterical cheering. A book about council elections. Huh. Could Rowling choose a duller subject? It's a brave move for her to take such a different direction, leaving behind the Potter comfort zone and abandoning the genre and target audience that has made her one of the most famous women in the world today. Now she must rely solely on her reputation for storytelling. Rowling and her publishers have kept the contents of this book as secretive as the Potter books. Although many books are embargoed from being sold ahead of their publication date, The Casual Vacancy is unusual in that it must not even be unwrapped before 8AM BST - not even a sneaky peek allowed for booksellers, on pain of the Cruciatus curse (possibly! Sorry. I was trying to avoid Potter references here.) I rather suspect that there must be more to this story than the small-town politics. Rowling has hinted that it will "shock fans" with its un-Potterish themes. I sincerely hope that she doesn't mean that The Casual Vacancy will be fitting into this year's bestselling genre!

I'm wary about the hype, although I will certainly want to get a scoop by being one of the first to read and review. Quite aside from this book launch, Thursday will be a busy day in the bookshop, so don't expect anything before Friday night at the earliest. I don't want to compare this book with Potter, and perhaps this will be easier by being set in the "real world" without magic or fantasy, but I'm sure some comparison will slip into my mind. (For some reason, I'm picturing Rowling's village Pagford as Hot Fuzz's Sandford!) I've always admired Rowling's mastery of storytelling above everything else, so I'm quite curious to see how that stands with new characters and settings. One week to go, and we'll know.

Delirium, Lauren Oliver

Love, who needs it? Sure, it feels good when you're with that special someone, but what about the pain when it ends? What about the fear that you're not good enough and that one day they'll realise it, or the jealousy that eats you up when he's late home for work? The soaring highs and the crashing lows are bad enough, but on top of that, love makes you do stupid things, put the beloved before yourself even at risk to yourself. Make no doubt about it: Love is a disease.

Or so Lena is led to believe, growing up at some unspecified point in the future. Luckily there is a cure against Love, or Amor Deliria Nervosa as it is now called. At eighteen, all US residents undergo surgery to remove all traces of the disease. They are paired up with suitable spouses, married out of college or high school, and have as many babies as the government tell them they can support. It seems to work all right. Even today many people argue that arranged marriages are as good as the kind based on being in love, with both parties having to work at the marriage and love coming as a result of this.

But wait. Did I mention love is a disease, and cured when a person reaches adulthood. Think about that for a moment. It's not just the being in love, but love, full stop. That's the love of parents to children - they bring them up dutifully and make sure they lack nothing they need, but there's no love. And without love, what is left? You're not even left with a love of things: hobbies, colour, beauty, music. There is no joy. There is no hatred or anger either; without love there is no emotion. But can you call yourself human? You might as well be one of the Cybermen of Doctor Who.

This is the world to which we are transported in Lauren Oliver's long-awaited dystopia, and what a bleak world it is. I've read a few dystopian teen novels recently, but they - Uglies and The Hunger Games are set in a very changed world. Uglies' is very polished and futuristic, while The Hunger Games has progressed technologically, and regressed in other ways, until it could be a high fantasy novel. But Delirium takes place in Portland, Maine, with real landmarks you can look up on Google Maps Street View. Although time has obviously passed, it feels as though this isn't so far away.

Delirium is the first part of a series - I think a trilogy - and all the way through myself wondering just how the story can end happily. Protagonist Lena is an ordinary teenager who falls in love just before she is due to undergo "the proceedure." After having unquestioningly accepted her fate, and the dangers of love, once she has experienced it for herself she finds herself wondering, desperate to defy the authorities and live happily ever after, and never mind the disease. But there is more at stake: it won't be enough for her to resist or survive the proceedure. The entire worldview of a nation has to change, and Lena is so very insignificant. I can't see how she and other resistors will realistically manage to persuade the whole country that all they've been brought up to believe in is wrong.

I found some of the culture in Delirium to be bizarre and contradictory. Love has been declared a disease, fair enough, but everything seems to revolve around keeping people uninfected. It's fair enough to succumb to the disease - that can be cured - but "sympathisers" are treated more like criminals, and punishment is harsh. It may appear to be a government concerned for its citizens, but it seems to me that there is an ulterior motive for keeping the people loveless. Even if it's the same old story: keeping people in their place and stopping them from thinking for themselves, I suspect more will be revealed in the sequels. And if this is a totalitarian regime, it doesn't have to make sense. You only have to look at somewhere like North Korea to see that.

After reading Oliver's Before I Fall, which was one of my big discoveries of last year, I've been eagerly awaiting Delirium, along with most other bloggers who read teen fiction. For me, though, "unputdownable" wasn't the word. (As far as I'm concerned "unputdownable" isn't a word!) Before I Fall was so fresh and original, I really did take it with me all around the house and got through it in a day. This time around I was able to read two other books at the same time as Delirium and it took me several days to finish. I thought the concept was fascinating, and that Oliver explored it well, with some beautiful writing, great characters and moments that came to life off the page. The plot itself, however, felt very familiar and I realised that the pattern of events, if not the details, mirrored the story outline of Uglies, at least in the first half. The second half is where the story really started to grab me and take on its own shape until its shock ending. Although other bloggers gave away no spoilers, I guessed from their reactions what might happen. That ending, however, ensures that the story from here on, and possibly even the story up to this point, isn't what you'd expect it to be, but something new and unexpected.

If you enjoyed this, you might like:

Uglies - Scott Westerfeld
The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
Matched - Ally Condie

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins.

Okay, okay, I admit it. I'm hooked. I've come to The Hunger Games series late - as usual - but now I've started I can barely stand to take a breather to write down my review of book two, Catching Fire, before picking up Mockingjay.

The Hunger Games are over for another year, and Katniss and Peeta are home. Yet though the Games have finished, the acting has not. After their triumph in the arena, they have become celebrities, and the Capitol is uneasy. Katniss and Peeta's small acts of defiance have inspired the viewers, and revolution is in the air. Katniss and Peeta have made a dangerous enemy, and it is only time before they are thrust into the limelight and the action once more.

In my review of The Hunger Games, I stated that I was disappointed that Katniss did not take more of a stand against the Capitol and the regime that enforces the barbaric scheme. I stand corrected. In such a repressive society, even "token" acts of rebellion are enough. Katniss's defiance of the regime was subtle but insidious and people all over the country of Panem are saying, "enough is enough." The Capitol is worried. Like a chip in a car's windscreen (as I am reminded by the Autoglass ads on the radio) where the Capitol's authority is not absolute, there it is endangered. If people can express discontent with tyranny, sooner or later they will, and another uprising is inevitable.

A spark could be enough to set them ablaze.

In the second chapter of Catching Fire we are introduced to the president of Panem. President Snow, who smells of roses and blood. A fitting name, Snow, for this man makes me feel cold just to read about. In just one chapter, I can see him clearly: cold and ruthless with a thin veneer of charm that just accentuates his cruelty.

Spoilers ahead

In Catching Fire, Katniss and Peeta find themselves once more in the arena for a second round of the Hunger Games, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the last uprising and the Capitol's victory. To commemorate, and also to have a legitimate chance to kill off these troublemakers once and for all, the Capitol decrees that the contestants should be chosen from previous victors - a "best of" show, if you like. I had thought that this would make dull, or at least a little repetitive reading, but I should have known better. Things are different this time. We get to know the rival contestants better as individuals, and it is even more upsetting to remember that they are not meant to survive, that even as Katniss grows fond of her companions, she means for them to die in the end.

 Katniss chooses different tactics this time, and we get to see the Games from a different angle - similar scenes up close where last time they were from a distance, teaming up with some other contestants rather than going it for the most part alone. The challenges they face are markedly different too. Like the Gamemakers, Suzanne Collins knows how to keep the idea fresh. But if I was a little disappointed with the ending of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire makes up for it, fulfilling the criteria I had regretted not being there in the first book, and keeping me glued to the pages. And what an ending! A cliffhanger that ensures I will be picking up Mockingjay as soon as this review is finished (so please excuse any typos.)

A note on the love triangle: before reading this book, I read enough about "Team Gale" and "Team Peeta" to know that Katniss was conflicted about which she loves. I was surprised to discover that Gale doesn't actually appear that much in the story, and although is a good character, I don't yet feel I know him very well. Unlike many love-triangle stories, though, I have genuinely no idea which - if either - Katniss will end up with in the long run.

I can't deny it any more. The Hunger Games does live up to the hype, or very nearly. I don't know why, or how - I can't put my finger on the secret, but it does. It is just very good, gripping and well-written, causing the reader to truly emphasise with the characters and feel hatred against the tyrannical regime. And, unusual in teenage books, especially those with love triangles, none of the characters annoy me.

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games almost completely passed me by until all of a sudden the internet buzzed with news of the final installment, Mockingjay. I read of the cover design being leaked, the embargo apparently being as strict as a new Harry Potter or Dan Brown title, at least in the USA. Although the book was also embargoed over in the UK, no doubt with severe disciplinary action being taken against any bookseller who let it free to roam the shelves early, it wasn't until a few copies trickled into my bookshop that I realised it was part of an existing series: a dystopia, recommended on the cover blurb by Stephenie Meyer and Stephen King, that I had been staring at for maybe a year without ever really noticing.

The story is set many years into the future, after some vaguely specified apocalypse has virtually destroyed the USA. The country has been rebuilt as Panem, split into Districts, and ruled over by the tyrannical Capitol. Poverty exists everywhere else, stealing punishable by death which may be preferable to the slower death by starvation one otherwise faces. The highlight of the year is called The Hunger Games. Once a year, twenty four teenagers - a boy and a girl from each District - are entered into a reality TV show - a survival show. Literally. The show is a fight to the death, the winner being the last survivor. Contestants may opt-in, but not out. If you are chosen, there is nothing you can do but go through with the horrific ordeal. Our heroine, Katniss Everdeen volunteers for the contest to save her beloved little sister from having to take part and no doubt be horribly slaughtered.

I did not expect to like The Hunger Games. The very thought of it repulses me and I wasn't sure I could handle a story that would be, essentially, a series of different death scenes, and of kids! Yet, over and over again, on blog after blog, I read rave reviews, and cannot recall a single negative one. Some people wrote that they were disappointed after the hype of Mockingjay, or maybe that the middle book was the weakest of the three, but the series as a whole received unanimous thumbs-up, so I decided I would try it and see what the fuss was all about.

I found The Hunger Games to be a very powerful book, with a terrifyingly well-realised world, some strong characters and a lot of action. Yet I'm not quite sure what the secret is. There are a lot of aspects of this book that usually turn me off a story - even if you leave out the evil that is the Hunger Games contest itself. I often don't like hardened, tough, cynical protagonists, and Katniss has aged before her time. She has had to. Her father is dead, her mother went to pieces with grief, and she was left as the head of the family in a brutal world. She has to be strong to survive, and she is presented as a realistic product of her upbringing. More than that, she is a real character, three-dimensional, understandable if not always sympathetic. Peeta, her companion from District 12, is quieter, at first glance weaker, a bit of a drip - or at least, that is how Katniss sees him. Yet as the story progresses and Katniss gets to know Peeta better, Peeta reveals an inner strength that was previously hidden.

The idea of the The Hunger Games came about when Suzanne Collins was channel-hopping between a reality TV show and news footage of child soldiers, and the juxtaposition between these two facets of the Hunger Games is jarring. On the one hand, Katniss is glamorised-up by airhead celebrity stylists, trained in interview skills, and on the other hand there is the gritty brutality of a war story. After all their training, all the build-up to the battle, some of her rivals die in the first minutes with only a sentence, not even named. It seems so anticlimactic, and yet this is war. And then, while the kids are fighting to survive, alone or together, Collins throws in a reminder that everything is live on television, that through all the carnage and chaos and terror, Katniss has to put on an act to show the Capitol what they want to see.

The Hunger Games themselves take up the majority of the book, mostly showing Katniss hiding, trying to find food and water out in the wilderness and just to stay alive. There is not a lot of human interaction or dialogue, as any other humans she meets are out to kill her. Again, I feel I ought to have got bored at times through these extended scenes, but Collins keeps you caring enough to want to know what happens next.

This next part contains some spoilers:

I was a little disappointed with the ending, or rather, I would have been if I hadn't known that the story continues. Firstly, the Gamemakers move the goalposts partway through the Games, which struck me as cheating on behalf of Collins, as it eliminates one of the hardest challenges Katniss and Peeta, if they were the last two survivors, would have to face - or would, if they didn't move them back at the last minute. Cunning, though, as it gives Katniss, Peeta and the reader a sense of relief before knocking them down back again, so maybe it wasn't quite the cheat I initially thought. I was sorry, however, that the pair seemed so resigned to the Capitol's regime and apart from a couple of token acts of rebellion, do little to change the world in which they live. I had thought that Katniss would defy the Capitol more strongly than she did, and even in the last pages I was waiting for her protest that this is not right. I'm still waiting.

I'm not sure that The Hunger Games is as amazing as the hype had led me to believe, but it is a very good book, and it was a lot better than the book blurb and my reading taste came together to expect.