The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling (3.0)
I was very curious to read this book, Ms. Rowling’s first
adult novel. The Harry Potter series had great characters and a compelling
story line, so I wondered if she would remove the magic elements, but keep
those features. I think she did that, but unfortunately there was another
important element missing from this book – any likable characters. I would
describe it as a story about a town filled with the miserable ‘Dursleys’, Harry’s
muggle aunt and uncle, a family with virtually no redeeming qualities. The
story starts with the death of a town councilor from a brain aneurism. As we
meet the various town members, everyone is in conflict with someone (parent,
spouse, peer) and everyone is miserable. The overarching conflict is within the
town council, where the deceased had fought to keep a low-income housing group
within the town limits and a larger faction was working to cede it to the
neighboring town. The topic is important and you can see Ms. Rowling’s
background (as someone who has both benefited from welfare and contributed
largely to taxes in Britain) in the points of view of the various characters.
She uses enough foreshadowing and her writing style encourages swift reading –
so I wanted to get to the end to see what happens. My biggest complaint is that
it was a very depressing book and I finished it more from curiosity at the
outcome than investment in the characters.
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