The Casual Vacancy

I was on my couch, e-reader in hand, reading a book, when my Dad announced, “Your J.K. Rowling has written a new book. I hear it's an adult book.” I was curious. Of course I was. Harry Potter was a part of my childhood and I highly anticipated a new novel from my favorite childhood author. I held off from buying the book immediately though. I went through a few Goodreads reviews from people who had completed the book, and I made my decision.

The book starts off slow. I'm a sucker for small town stories, and if you threw a British one at that, I was all ears. Anyway, the small town of Pagford in England is the primary location of this novel. I was a few pages into the book and just when I felt it was pretty good, I came upon ‘flirt'. I was shell-shocked. I mean, I wasn't a stranger to cuss words, much less this being a term I heard used everyday. Hell! It was a term even I used. But when it came from the pen of the woman who was a major part of my childhood, I was pretty shaken up. The story telling is typical of JKR. Slow and steady; with just the ample amount of description to kick your imagination into high gear.

When I heard JKR was writing an adult book, I wasn't really convinced. Then, when I got the book in my hands and started reading it, I knew it was true. She uses a lot of cuss words...liberally. I couldn't go through a page without coming across half a dozen swear words. While she discusses the matter of sexuality pretty openly, she does fail at using the appropriate cuss words.

Apparently, JKR has a problem with the c-word; she uses it liberally and she hasn't perfected its use. I haven't come across a single person using it as liberally as I have across JKR using it. In a book, no less. Oh, I have come across them using it in erotic novels, but then, if they weren't, would it even be considered an erotic novel these days?

JKR takes up the same issue she took up in the Harry Potter series - the fight between good and evil. It's a constant source of new books and most of them tell you the same thing in between two thick cardboard bounds and 700 pages of words; good wins, evil loses. I'm not saying it's the same, obviously it's not. But, it's the same content and people have to realize that. Now more so than ever.

The rich and the poor fight. The town dwellers look down upon the slum dwellers. All common, right? Yeah. Absolutely! Rowling is pointing out the reality of the situation here! If most of these people had bothered reading through the entire book, it does tell a good story; a story with a moral. A moral everyone should follow.

I won't tell you what it is. You should read it and find it out for yourselves. Think of it as a quest.

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, and you're getting ready for bed, just think: “Would it do for me to think of people who have the same money as me as my equal and look down upon those with less money as my lesser?” Think about it and tell me what you honestly think.

If politics is your forte, then this book is for you. JKR has already shown us how manipulative she can be in her Harry Potter series. She shows a bit of that here too, in the form of court-room politics. Politics is all over the place. It's the second thing that suffocates you about the book, after the cuss words. Personally, it has been really well executed by Rowling and I have to take my hat off to her for that. The book has an amazing plot, though not as amazing that it should span seven books, but amazing enough to proclaim proudly that, “Yes, I have a right to be voted for in the Goodreads Choice Awards!” So what are you waiting for? Read it and vote for it!