GREAT READS

The Casual Vacancy

J. K. Rowling

The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling's first book written for adults. Rowling's various characters and plots kept me entertained. Krystal is a teenage girl raising her four-year-old brother while living with a drug-addicted mother. She sees her mother caught up in the vicious cycle of recovery and relapses and decides she needs to do something to improve the lives of herself and her brother. The one person who believed in Krystal, Barry Fairbrother, dies as the book begins. He leaves an open seat on the parish council, thus the casual vacancy. No one is very happy in this book as the rich are against the poor, children against their parents and wives against their husbands. Lives are turned upside down as unethical actions are revealed. I was pleasantly surprised and thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Recommended by Pam Wiseman