The Accident Season had been on my radar for quite some time, the premise sounded interesting and the reviews weren’t the worst. I found a very cheap copy in a sale last year and figured it was worth a shot. I didn’t actually pick it out to read until my TBR Jar gifted it upon me.
Title: The Accident Season
Author: Moira Fowley-Doyle
Genre: Mystery, YA, Contemporary
Publication Date: July 2nd 2015
Publisher: Corgi Childrens
Pages: 281
Summary: 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?
I’ve heard very little about this story online. Nothing about plot, characters or anything about the author. I’ll start by saying that i enjoyed the general story. The whole premise of ‘accident season’ in these peoples lives were interesting. It only effects one family, once a year. During this month the three children and their mother come under the influence of something greater than they, constantly causing them accidents. This can be bridges falling down with them on, car crashes, head bumps, cut fingers, scrapes, bruises, whatever else you can image. It leaves their house covered in bubble wrap and constant phone calls to make sure they’re okay. I’ve never read anything with this kind of story line, and i don’t know what i was expecting. Yes the accident season was a huge part of the story, but it turned out to be one of the least significant plots. The story became about something so much bigger.
This so much bigger plot regarding Elsie, a girl who our protagonist keeps seeing but cannot place or pin down, involved a lot of twists and turns that was very welcome to this story. It’s been a long time since a story gave me chills, and i was not expecting aspects of horror to be included towards the end. It gave it a little bit of an edge to other YA stories.
I however was put off by one huge thing. For quite a bit of this story, i was under the impression it was set in America (lets face it, as most YA stories are). So about half way through when it was said they were from Ireland, i struggled to place any of the characters, setting and to be honest, everything that had happened so far. I really could imagine this story being told in America and was firm in my placement. I still cannot see this story being played out in Ireland, and it took quite a while to tell the reader of the setting. I couldn’t get it out of my head then, the pure confusion.
Some of the characters fell a little flat, some of the story-lines weren’t necessary and the writing wasn’t the best it could have been. I got lost in words sometimes and lost what the character was doing. However i’m really glad that i read this and found out what the mysterious ‘accident season’ was. It’s quite an easy YA read with some twists that are refreshing of the genre. However, this story does get a little creepy, i wouldn’t recommend it for readers under the age of fifteen.
The Little Contemporary Corner 