2.5 stars
I bought this book because I think J.K Rowling is an amazing woman and I was super excited to see how she would write a book that wasn't
Harry Potter.
Although the writing is excellent, I found this story to be a little boring and it didn't really resolve some of the storylines. I think that may have been what Rowling was trying to do as some problems don't just disappear in life, but I still thought some of the stories could have had more depth and explanation in the end. I did not have a favourite character in this novel because I didn't really like any of the characters in the novel consistently, they all did something to annoy me at some point in the story which once again I think was the point J.K was trying to make, that hardly anyone is consistently good their whole lives. I would recommend this book to older readers who like drama.
Barry Fairbrother, a parish councillor, dies of an aneurism. He was one of the few people on the Pagford council that was fighting for The Fields, a housing development next to Pagford which homed many drug addicts and children of drug addicts, to keep them as part of Pagford and allowed to attend their school. His death causes an election, where Simon Price, abusive father to Andrew, Colin "Cubby" Wall, the school vice principal with OCD and father to Fats, and Miles Mollison, son of Howard and Shirley Mollison, both already on the council and the leaders of the anti-field party, all wish to run for his spot. Andrew learns how to hack in computer class and hacks into Barry's old account on the Parish Council website where he changes the username to The_Ghost_of_Barry_Fairbrother and posts about his father's backdoor deals. Simon then withdraws from the election, after giving his sons and wife a severe beating and losing his job. Sukhvinder then hacks into the website and posts about how her mother, Parminder another supporter of Barry and pro-fields councilmember, was in love with Barry and only voted how he told her. Fats then hacks the website and posts about how his father constantly worries about touching students innapropriatley which causes him to have a psycological breakdown. Miles then wins the election and Andrew teaaches his dad how to hack the website so he posts about how Maureen and Howard were having an affair. Shirley then steals an EpiPen and plans to stab and kill Howard with it, however once she gets home he is having a heart attack, at the same time Krystal and Fats were having sex while Robbie was nearby, however Robbie wandered off and fell into the river. Sukhvinder dived into the river to save him but Robbie drowned anyway. Krystal then felt she had nothing to live for without her brother and kills herself, everyone continuing to hate her in her death, especially Shirley who thought that Howard, who survived, may have gotten to the hospital sooner had two ambulances not needed to come, getting the operator confused.
