It's the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom.
The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara's life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara's family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items - but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear.
But why are they so cursed? And how can they break free?
The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle
Published August 18, 2015 by Corgi Childrens
This novel was marvellous. Strictly speaking within classic reviewing techniques, I'm supposed to keep my opinions to myself until the end. But screw that, this book was marvellous. It's been a while since I read a book that was so unputdownable. On creative writing courses, they always teach that it doesn't matter what happens in the story if you have a vivid enough character. Within this book we literally follow a family around for a month, and it is vibrant and magnificent and yet not a lot happens. I thought this would be some crazy supernatural witchcraft kind of novel, but really we follow a family around who think they are cursed, when in reality they have had some shitty luck and have made up "The Accident Season" so that it feels like it's all happening for a reason and not just a c'est la vie sort of thing. That being said there is also this whole thing with Elsie, she's a dead, alive girl who was a still born baby ghost thing? Honestly that made no sense, the book spent time convincing me the accident season didn't actually exist, that it was coincidence and repressed fear from Sam's abusive dad. Then suddenly there was a dead baby ghost. It made no sense within the narrative but I didn't care.
Seventeen year old Cara is our protagonist. She seems fairly average has an older sister, a best friend and a not at all biologically related step-brother (you can tell what happens immediately can't you?) The book is very PLL (Pretty Little Liars) if everyone was open and honest there would be no accident season. Everything would be much simpler, but then there would be no story, and it is one hell of a story. Each character has something forbidden, some secret they are frightened of. Sam and Cara are in love with each other, obviously a taboo relationship, as are Cara's sister and best friend. But her sister is in an abusive relationship and has repressed memories of being abused by their step-father. A fact in which Cara's mother knows and all the while they are all searching for this girl Elsie from school who has disappeared and nobody knows who she is. Ironically as well, invisible, ghost girl Elsie opened a secret booth in their school so that everyone can let out these secrets and all of this is honed into an enchanting, crazy beautiful work of writing craftmanship. It is a wild, whimsical dream book. I can't tell what was real and what was intense teenage, drunken imagination. This group of teens stole my heart with their tipsy minds and surprising fear. I shipped Sam and Cara, they aren't actually related and besides, they grew up together as best friends. At first the idea made me uncomfortable but 100 pages in I was sold.
Overall I loved this book, I immediately popped it onto my Favourites shelf on Goodreads and couldn't stand to put it down for a second, so even ended up taking it on a pedalo. READ IT. READ IT. REAAAAD IT.
Happy Reading.
READ IT.
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