Casual Vacancy

Title: Casual Vacancy

Author: J.K. Rowling

Genre: Fiction

Time: 11 hours

J.K. Rowlings first book after Harry Potter.  To be honest, I have not read a single Harry Potter book.  Ever.  I know right?  How can a book-worm like me not have read the Harry Potter Series?  Well, here’s another thing about me.. when something becomes mainstream, I kinda don’t like it anymore.  Yeah, I’m hipster that way.

Anyway, this book is that kind of book you wanna enjoy over a long summer break.  It’s not the can’t-put-down book you read in a day.  This is a book you can savor during you lazy days, put down to do other stuff and pick it back up later on.

It starts innocuously enough.  A death of a councilor, this middle aged man with a wife and kids and was very active and well-liked in their small community.  But eventually the story would slowly unfold.  Too slow at the start, in my opinion.  I kinda got confused with so many characters introduced at first but eventually I caught on. 

Once the characters are introduced, you then see this political tug-of-war going on that got complicated with Barry’s death.  But as it goes on, you get to know how colorful the characters are, behind their personas.  You see their struggles, insecurities, hopes and dreams. 

You see Crystal’s addict mom where I eventually found out the reasons for her turning to drugs.  She didn’t have the best start in life so she tried to survive the best way she could.  It’s sad coz for people like her, those methadone programs would never work unless she addresses the root cause of her turning to drugs. 

And then there’s Crystal.  She, too, didn’t have the best start in life and her way of surviving is being defiant and pretending not to care which often times did more harm than good.  You’d think she was this awful person but the truth was, she loves her little brother so much and would do anything to keep him from being taken away by social services.  She’s misunderstood so she lashes out when all she wants is to fit in. 

Then you have the “affluent” people on the other side of the town.  Beyond their “perfect” facades are unhappy marriages, disappointments, insecurities, verbal abuse, secret adoptions, mental illnesses and more.

At the end of the book, you get to know these characters and get attached to them.  You understand that they are not perfect and there are reasons why they are who they are.  And that’s just how humans are.  I really didn’t expect that Crystal would die in the end.  I was really rooting for her to overcome her bad start in life (like Barry did), but in a way, I’m sort of glad she and Robbie died.  At least in death, they can finally be at peace and not suffer though the hardships in life coz I doubt their mom could turn her life around and if she did, the damage to Robbie & Crystal would have been already irreparable.