Accidents Happen

by Louise Millar

[Joni Reads]

This was a really good read. Poor Kate is so terrified of bad things happening to her she actually has a steel cage installed into the top floor of her house so if anyone breaks in while her son and her are sleeping they can't reach Kate and Jack. She is constantly barraged by numbers and statistics of things can go wrong simply by riding your bike during the day versus at night or which airline has the most plane crashes (not that she would risk getting on a plane anyway). And I can't say I don't see why she is like this. Her parent's were killed in a freak car accident the day of her wedding and then her husband was murdered while she and her then toddler son were upstairs in the same house. To her bad luck doesn't just happen, it happens to her. All the time.



But then she meets a man named Jago who has written a book on the statistics that constantly plague Kate. She admits that she has a bit of an anxiety problem and he agrees to help her work through it. Turns out his publisher knows of a psychologist who is working on a book about the exact kind of anxiety that Kate suffers from, where the statistics that are supposed to help you actually start to affect the way you live your life.



Through a series of off the wall experiments Jago helps Kate block out the constant numbers in her head and teaches her not only how to live her life normally but how to embrace it. Poor Kate never stops to think that maybe this Jago fellow is too good to be true. Nor does she realize that her run of bad luck might be much more than that. Someone might just be out to get her and her family for sinister reasons she never saw coming.



I thought this book was pretty unique, the way it takes the statistics that are shoved in every car commercial, food container, etc and turns them into a literal illnes for this woman. I hardly notice those statistics but for Kate she can't forget them. When Jago comes along and starts to help her I was cheering for her. It was so nice to see her start to live again. I admit, at the beginning of the book it's easy to be frustrated with Kate the way her whole family is because it's so hard to understand the way she really can't escape from the statistics. They literally haunt her until Jago teaches her ways to block them out and how to take back control of her life. He words things in a way that I loved. You can do all your research on which airline to fly with by comparing the statistics for crashes and safety standards and feel totally safe and confident you made the perfect informed choice- and then choke on peanut in the airport lobby. There is no way to make yourself totally safe from all the dangers in the world and it's fun to see Kate realize this and allow herself to open up to living again.



The ending was perfect in how unexpected it was and I loved watching all the pieces fall into place and literally saying "OH!! I get it now!" as things were uncovered and I realized what had been going on all along. Usually with thrillers and mysteries I can predict whodunit as soon as the mystery is presented but with this book I was totally caught off guard, which I loved. So glad I was able to review this book.