Enter The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowlings. Yes, that's right. The author who brought us the Harry Potter series branched out and wrote a very adult book.
I bought the book because J.K. Rowlings wrote it. I knew going into it that it was a great departure from all the Harry Potter books. I knew that this book would be dark and edgy. I knew all of this. And yet by page 100 I was so done with the book I put it down.
I disliked all the characters. None of them were nice, every aspect of this book was mean to me. I didn't like the writing style. I felt like she was using these Hemingway - esk long run on sentences way too often and required me to look up like every other word. Which is not necessarily a bad thing.
Still at the end of the day, the book was not for me.
Book club thoughts ranged all over the place. Some, like me, really didn't get it. Some didn't like the language, the brutality, the gritty-ness of this book. Others thought the book represented a real view into the reality of the have's and the have not's. At the end of the day, I think we all decided it wasn't our favorite. Considering out of the 5 of us that were there, none of us had finished the whole book.
In typical book club fashion though, we did have wine, and we did have some good food and a great location for book club this month.
Meet Mrs. Atlanta (she moved here from Atlanta and I've got no better nick name for her). She was our hostess.
Her and her husband live in this TINY, beautiful apartment on the 11th floor of a building in downtown Seattle. THIS is their view.
They are moving out of said apt and onto a boat for the summer. We were all somewhat jealous (I'm jealous at the idea of moving onto a boat and just going anywhere. I'm not jealous of trying to figure out what to pack on said boat.
We ate burgers. We ate fruit. We ate salad. We ate chocolate. We drank wine. We chatted books.
We were missing one of our compadres. Princess Lori had other more important things to do than sit around and drink wine and chat with a few of her besties. Though I'm sure she would have preferred to be with us than what she was doing.
This is Mrs. Braspir (formally known as Queen PopUp). She's one of my most favoritest people. Family friend forever and keeps me amused and entertained. If you ever want to do something and need someone to do it with Mrs. Braspir is usually in.
This is Blueberry. She wasn't at all happy about me taking her photo since, in her words, "I've been at the lab all day and I look gross." I don't see any lab schmutz on her and I think she looks just fine. She gets the lucky title of BFF for me. We've been BFFs since sometime in the EARLY 80's.
This is Seattle SIL...she needed the glass of wine more than any of us. She, like Mrs. Braspir, is usually up for ANYTHING...and I just love doing stuff with her. She makes me happy 99% of the time. And that 1% is when I start thinking about BigBro and missing them together. But I keep that to myself...mostly. She is who I'm going on the next cruise with and I guarantee THIS pose will be a frequent one. Smile on her face, glass of wine in her hand!
This group of ladies that we now call Vines & Spines are some of my most treasured friendships. They all bring something unique to the relationship with me and at the same time bring the same thing. They bring love, acceptance, humor and hope. I am so very blessed to have them in my life and hope each and every one of them knows it.
ahem...sniff sniff....
We added a new member to book club this month too. More on that later. I'll have to come up with a nickname for her. More on that later.
1 comments:
I'm glad I'm not the only one who did not like this book. I loved the Harry Potter books, but this was just not good. Somehow, I fought my way through to the end, and found it quite disappointing, so you were smart not to finish it.
Your book club looks fun. I need a book club like that!
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