User blog comment:Gcheung28/J.K.'s Casual Vacancy/@comment-31924693-20121002012438

I bought this book as an Amazon Kindle book the day before it came out. To order it I needed to install Kindle-for-PC on my netbook; on publication day I went into Google Play Store on my Nexus 7 and installed Kindle-for-Android on that. (That makes three ebook readers on my Nexus; the Google Books app which is pre-installed, the Aldiko app for my main ebook library (Adobe EPUB format), and now Kindle.)

As soon as I registered, the book downloaded to the Nexus without having to be copied from the netbook. I started reading almost immediately (Friday morning), and found that I was totally engrossed — I felt compelled to read the book every moment I could. I finally finished it on Sunday evening.

It is of course a much grittier book than the HP books; it's written for adults, so instead of being told "he swore" we're subjected to the actual words used. This being a realistic novel, unlike the fantasy world of the previous series, there's a lot of foul language, especially when it's teenagers talking, since sadly that's what they do sound like in actuality. This takes a bit of getting used to.

I found it a wonderful and compelling tale, although rather dark. There's no magic (other than the literary variety of a good story well-told), but there are several mentions of the real-life version of the Alohamora spell, namely an SQL injection which is used to break into the council website. I also wonder how long this tale has been brewing, since at one point there's a mention (albeit not by name) of what is obviously a branch of the easyEverything cybercafé chain, which shut down about five years ago.

In all, well worth reading. Just keep it well-hidden from your children, that's all...