Review: The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

THE ACCIDENT SEASON
by Moira Fowley-Doyle
Publication date: 18th August 2015
Published by Corgi Childrens
Pages: 280
Source: Free from Random House Children's Publishers (work experience)

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Blurb from Goodreads:

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? 

Review: 

Let me start by saying, there’s a LOT more to this book than meets the eye. It’s one of those great reads where different plot lines and points that seem totally unrelated at the time of reading are all deliciously drawn together for the finale – and boy, does this book have a finale. 

Cara is a typical, slightly tomboyish teenage girl. Along with her best friend (the tarot-carding wielding Bea), her older, popular sister Alice, and their ex-stepbrother Sam, the four present a perfect representation of the complexity of the 21st-century family set up. Aside from The Accident Season, they really are just a bunch of normal teenagers: there’s underage drinking, occasional cigarette smoking, and a whole lot of relationship troubles too. 

There’s a tension that runs through this book that really makes it hard to put down. You just KNOW something bad’s going to happen, and not just a bump on the head or an unfortunate slip – something really bad. When the gang decide to throw a Hallowe’en party to celebrate the end of The Accident Season, that’s when the action really gets going – headed by a mysterious costume shop, a river that Cara keeps getting drawn back to, an abandoned mansion in the middle of a forest, and four mysterious changeling creatures that keep appearing in Cara’s dreams. 

And who is Elsie, the girl at school who seems to be showing up in all of Cara’s photographs? What’s with the ‘Secrets’ booth that she runs at lunchtime in the library? 

There’s only a couple of problems I had with this book. One, the romantic story line that runs alongside the main fantasy is SO OBVIOUS FROM THE START. There’s no build up, and no subtlety. I think I guessed the whole arc by the very first ‘clue’ Fowley-Doyle gives you. A bit disappointing, but trust me – this book has twists and turns in spades elsewhere, and you’re a lot smarter than me if you see those ones coming. My other complaint is complicated, as its arguably what also makes the book so good: there’s SO much going on. Not in terms of plot, really – it’s a pretty easy one to follow – but the mishmash of fantasy, the paranormal and the coming-of-age style narrative sometimes seems a bit unbalanced. There’s almost not enough of the fantasy and paranormal. Throw in the big discussions the book provokes about family dynamics too, and you’ve got yourself a LOT to be thinking about. 

Overall, it’s a pretty good read. The characters are all very believable and obviously well thought out by the author, and the story is definitely complex enough for you to want to give it a reread after you’ve finished it. A really good choice if you’re looking for a Hallowe’en-y read this October. 

Rating: 7/10.