Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling (2012)

Of course I had to read J.K. Rowling's latest book, but it was underwhelming. Since I was listening to it instead of reading it, I had a hard time keeping track of all the characters in the beginning, but had them straight someplace along the way.  It had some similar themes to Harry Potter, factions in the community, open and closed minded folks, teens growing up, but it had sex and family violence that HP did not and the setting in the real world made it just another "what people are really thinking and doing" story.

This is the story of a small English town of Pagford, which sounded like Padfoot (Sirius in Harry Potter) to me in the audio version, and I actually had to go look at a copy of the book in the store to find out how the town's name was spelled. Barry Fairbrother dies in the first chapter and the rest of the story seems to vaguely revolve around him and the "casual vacancy" he has left on the parish council. There is Howard and Shirley Mollison, he being the obese head of the council and owner of a gourmet deli. Then there is their lawyer son Miles and his wife Samantha, who owns a lingerie shop. They have girls we don't get to know. Colin "Cubby" and Tessa Wall work in the school and have a teenage son Stuart or "Fats" who tries to be authentic by being a bad boy. Simon and Ruth Price have a teenage son Andrew, who was my favorite character, who hates his father, wants to protect his mother, stabilize his friend Fats, falls for the beautiful Gaia, etc. Vikram and Parminder Jawanda are doctors with teen daughter Sukhvinder that they don't understand and a couple of other kids. Gavin was supposedly Barry's best friend, but the least likable character, who is having a relationship with Kay Bawden, who's daughter is the beautiful Gaia. Kay is a social worker who cares, but even she has a tough time with the Wheedons. Mom Terri is a heroin addict and prostitute, with teen daughter Krystal and toddler Robbie and they live in the Fields, a low income housing development. Most of the controversy in the book is about the Fields and thus my sense was that Krystal was the central character of the novel. She is a troublemaker, but when you see her living conditions, you see why. She tries to take care of and protect her little brother, but feels she has few options. Barry had involved her in the rowing team. Tessa and Kay both try to help.

I don't regret reading the book. I liked some of the English references that differed from a small town in the U.S. I did come to care for Andrew, Krystal, Sukhvinder, Gaia, less for the adults. Some relationships were cleared up, others were not - like in life. Definitely not in my list of top books for the year.