The Accident Season

by Mora Fowley-Doyle

Every October Cara and her family become mysteriously and dangerously accident-prone, but this year, the year Cara, her ex-stepbrother, and her best friend are 17, is when Cara will begin to unravel the accident season's dark origins.

• ISBN10: 0525429484
• ISBN13: 9780525429487
• Publish Date: 18 August 2015
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Kathy Dawson Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[shannonmiz]

This review was originally posted on It Starts at Midnight
I didn't know entirely what to expect from The Accident Season as I have kind of made the choice to never look at a synopsis after my initial addition to the TBR. I knew it looked cool, and that I'd bookmarked it as a book I really wanted. I ended up getting it at BEA, and then in the mail from Penguin, which was awesome- especially since one of you get to win my extra copy ;)

So, I was going in mostly blind. I knew it was about a girl and her family being prone to accidents during the titular Accident Season. That's pretty easy to figure out. But there was so, so much more to this story than the accidents. I was expecting a mystery, but I got mystery along with basically every single other thing I could want in a book.

First, I found the writing to be lovely and mesmerizing. Everything about The Accident Season was incredibly atmospheric- I felt the damp October weather, the general creepiness that surrounded the story in every page. That isn't to say that the whole book was dreary, on the contrary, the characters were so well fleshed out, so relatable, that they positively shined.

Let's start with said characters! Cara and her family are the main focus of the book and the accident season in general. This isn't something happening to everyone, this is isolated to these four unfortunate souls (Cara, her sister Alice, her ex-step-brother Sam, and her mom) who have to be very careful during the month of October. Cara's best friend Bea, who is also friends with Alice and Sam, is a tarot reader and predicts that this accident season will be extra awful. There is a bit of romance (the slow, non-insta-lovey kind that makes me particularly happy) that I absolutely shipped, and a huge part of this book is family related, since they are the ones affected by all of this.

Here's the problem with writing a coherent review for this book: It is basically overflowing with secrets. All kinds of secrets about every aspect of the book, twists I never saw coming, revelations that left me breathless. For me to even talk about them would be doing you a disservice. So, want to know what you get if you decide to read this book (and I think you should decide to read this book)? Great!

• Really fun and down to earth characters. Flawed, but trying their best, wanting to have a normal life but being caught in this mess of an accident season, they are loyal to and protective of their family and friends.


• Mystery is everywhere. There's the mystery of the entire accident season, along with Cara trying to find a girl who hasn't been showing up at school. And with mystery comes all the secrets.


• A dash of paranormalcy adds to the mysterious quality of the book. Sometimes I wasn't even completely sure what was happening with the paranormal stuff, but I was not at all disappointed when I figured it out!


• All kinds of emotions! I laughed, I rooted for relationships, I swooned a bit, I was scared for the characters, I was shocked by twists, and yeah, I cried a time or two. But when a book makes me feel all the things, I know it is my kind of book!

Bottom Line: Is there any doubt I am recommending this? It was unique, unlike anything I've read before, with lovely writing, amazing characters, and a plot that I won't forget! Get thee to a bookstore!

**Copy provided from publisher for review

[girlinthepages]

If there's one word to describe The Accident Season, it's atmospheric. Set in Ireland, it follows a family that suffers unfortunate events (everything from scrapes and bruises to deaths) every October, despite their best precautions. It's a refreshingly unique premise for a YA novel, and while I was anticipating horror, what the storyline evokes instead is a unique sort of whimsical eeriness.

The novel starts out right away with a disturbing revelation: Cara, the protagonist, realizes that a quiet, nondescript classmate appears in the periphery of every photo she's taken over a period of years. This revelation births an unsettling feeling in readers that grows stronger throughout the novel, burning stronger as other events come into play: changelings only Cara can see, rag dolls abandoned in forests, collapsing bridges, and masquerades set in decrepit mansions. The story hangs thick with the threat of things going wrong, and creates a sense of anxiety as to what the next accident will be: a scraped knee or a deadly car crash?

I'll admit that the story started off a bit slow for me, and while I found the characters charming, I also often questioned some of their decisions for being reckless during the accident season (such as trespassing on abandoned property, going for late night walks through the woods, etc). While the character development is quiet and subtle, it's an interesting study in seeing how a family has become so en-wrapped and defined by its' collective tragedy, and how directly or indirectly they themselves may be contributing to the accidents. There's a sense of mystery throughout the book about how such an Accident Season came to exist: Magic? Paranormal activity? Sheer bad luck? I was satisfied by the explanation at the end of the book, but it managed to provide closure without explaining away all of its mystery with sensible logic. While this novel stands in the YA Contemporary genre, there's an element of magical realism that exists hovers above the plot, just out of reach, throughout the entire story that makes you feel unsettled and off-balance.

The story also explores the damaging effect of secrets and the cathartic freedom that comes from releasing them, even anonymously. Elsie, the mysterious student in all of Cara's pictures, runs a "secrets booth" at their high school, comprised of an old fashioned type-writer, a wooden box, and a privacy screen. Students line up at the secrets booth to privately and anonymously types out their darkest secrets, slipping them into the box, and at the end of the year they are displayed in an art installation throughout the hallways of the school. The secrets booth reminded me of the PostSecret craze, and the thrill of anonymous confession that's so rare in this day in age when so much about everyone's lives are plastered across social media. The story did a fantastic job showing the duality of secrets, and how they can hurt and heal depending on how they are used.

While the story started slowly for me, the last third of the book entranced me with it's Black Cat and Whiskey Moon Halloween Masquerade. The juxtaposed genres of contemporary, magical realism, and a hint of paranormal comes crashing together at the party Cara, her siblings and her best friend through at an abandoned, decrepit mansion to test the last few hours of the Accident Season. Secrets unravel, relationships are made and broken, characters are kissing the wrong and right people, and I just felt like I was THERE, caught up in the music and mystery and rowdy temptation to dance with the ghosts lingering on the ceiling. It was a whirl-wind of a book ending, but the imagery of the party and the revelations made in the aftermath were stunning.

Overall: While a bit slow to start, The Accident Season is a novel that blurs the boundaries of contemporary and paranormal in a compelling way, following a thread of unease through a dark storyline with elements of whimsy that keep it from being too heavy. The writing is wonderfully atmospheric, and the imagery often makes up for a few plot holes. By the end of the story, Fowley Doyle will have you questioning how many accidents are the cause of fate, and how many are the indirect effects of human motivations and sinister desires. While it didn't amaze me (I was able to infer a major plot point early on in the novel), The Accident Season is a promising debut from an author with a unique writing style.This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages