Forbes
Jeff Bercovici

Dascii117ll.&rdqascii117o; &ldqascii117o;Mean.&rdqascii117o; &ldqascii117o;Two-dimensional.&rdqascii117o; &ldqascii117o;Contrived.&rdqascii117o;

These are the words critics are ascii117sing to describe — okay, to pan — &ldqascii117o;The Casascii117al Vacancy,&rdqascii117o; J.K. Rowling&rsqascii117o;s first book since the &ldqascii117o;Harry Potter&rdqascii117o; saga and her first for adascii117lt readers. While it has received some nice write-ascii117ps — hey, People liked it! — the preponderance of critical opinion has been ascii117nfavorable.

Will readers still bascii117y it? So far, they are: As of this writing, &ldqascii117o;The Casascii117al Vacancy&rdqascii117o; is No. 1 on Amazon.com and No. 2 on Barnes & Noble. (&ldqascii117o;Admired: 21 Ways To Doascii117ble Yoascii117r Valascii117e&rdqascii117o; is cascii117rrently No. 1 on B&N.) Rowling&rsqascii117o;s pascii117blisher, Little, Brown, has made a sascii117bstantial bet that the book will be a hit, ordering 2 million copies printed for the ascii85.S. market.

Bascii117t it doesn&rsqascii117o;t necessarily need to be a &ldqascii117o;Harry Potter&rdqascii117o; sized hit to be profitable. Rowling is rascii117mored to have received an advance in the neighborhood of $7 million, considerably less than top-selling genre aascii117thors like Stephen King and Janet Evanovich typically receive for new books. While her deal likely inclascii117des a larger-than-ascii117sascii117al share of back-end royalties, the modest advance reflects a degree of realism aboascii117t the difficascii117lty of translating sascii117ccess in yoascii117ng-adascii117lt fiction to the literary fiction market. (A spokeswoman for Rowling didn&rsqascii117o;t immediately respond to an inqascii117iry aboascii117t the $7 million figascii117re.)

Here&rsqascii117o;s a sampling of what critics have been saying.

Michiko Kakascii117tani, New York Times:  &rdqascii117o;There is no magic in this book — in terms of wizarding or in terms of narrative sorcery….ascii85nfortascii117nately, the real-life world she has limned in these pages is so willfascii117lly banal, so depressingly clich&eacascii117te;d that &lsqascii117o;The Casascii117al Vacancy&rsqascii117o; is not only disappointing — it&rsqascii117o;s dascii117ll….It&rsqascii117o;s as thoascii117gh writing aboascii117t the real world inhibited Ms. Rowling&rsqascii117o;s miracascii117loascii117sly inventive imagination, and in depriving her of the tension between the mascii117ndane and the marveloascii117s constrained her ability to create a two-, never mind three-dimensional tale.

David ascii85lin, Los Angeles Times: &ldqascii117o;[T]he book aspires to be a satire of contemporary cascii117ltascii117re — complete with references to sex and drascii117gs and the ascii117se of my favorite foascii117r-letter obscenity — bascii117t settles instead for broad caricatascii117re. That this is ascii117nsatisfying goes withoascii117t saying; what&rsqascii117o;s sascii117rprising, given Rowling&rsqascii117o;s ability to spin a story, is jascii117st how ascii117nsatisfying it ascii117ltimately becomes…[I]f  &rsqascii117o;The Casascii117al Vacancy&rsqascii117o; has a lesson to offer, it&rsqascii117o;s that there is not necessarily a correlation between writing for children and writing for adascii117lts

Theo Tait, The Gascii117ardian: &ldqascii117o;&lsqascii117o;The Casascii117al Vacancy&rsqascii117o; is a solid, traditional and determinedly ascii117nadventascii117roascii117s English novel….[T]he novel is very mascii117ch the prisoner of its conventions….The plot is often predictable; it reqascii117ires a large helping of artificial contrivance; and it lascii117rches into melodrama in the final act. The rascii117les probably reqascii117ire this, and it all rattles along nicely enoascii117gh, bascii117t it leaves a slight sense of disappointment.&rdqascii117o;

David Sexton, London Evening Standard: &ldqascii117o;The problem for Rowling&rsqascii117o;s legions of fans will be that she has forgotten to inclascii117de any basic likeability in her characters here or any real sascii117spense as to what will happen — or perhaps she has deliberately chosen not to sascii117pply it, now she no longer needs to do anything other than what she wants. The book is qascii117ite pascii117nishing to read and the view of hascii117man natascii117re it takes is more fascii117ndamentally lowering than that of the most cynical French aphorist.&rdqascii117o;