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A review by byashleylamar
The Accidentals by Minrose Gwin
2.0
There was so much about The Accidentals that didn't work for me. I don't even know where to start. It sounded like such a great story and I am a sucker for a good tragedy. Unfortunately, this fell so flat for me.
The author writes about some pretty heavy topics in this book - backwoods abortions, loss of a spouse/parent, grief, teen pregnancy, adoption, kidnapping, prison, unhappy partnerships, and redemption. It felt ambitious but I was looking forward to it. It ended up being a vague mess.
I know there is a golden rule in creative writing to "show don't tell" the reader what's happening but in The Accidentals it felt like that led to vague descriptions and a ton of missing details. I frequently found myself having to assume what was happening and wondering if I was correct. Situations or behavior would eventually be confirmed but not until a chapter or two later when more vague information was offered. It made me so frustrated. It felt like the author wanted to address tough subjects but then didn't really want to get into the meat of them which leads to the next point - the pacing was terrible.
The chapters alternate the character POV (which is fine) but huge chunks of time sometimes passed and there wasn't anything that ever fully explained how much time had passed. Months? A year? 2 years? 10 years? I could guesstimate and follow the story but there wasn't any actual confirmation. This got much worse in the second half of the book because it suddenly rushed through the final decades. The whole first half of the book spans maybe 4 - 8 years but the second half seems to fly through about 20 years. Again, I'm not really sure because details are missing.
I may be especially annoyed because the final chapter was such a letdown. The characters find themselves moving around a bit (Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, etc) but somehow end up in the same little town at the end which is just super convenient. Characters that had never met and lived in different cities are suddenly neighbors. The appearance of Josie at the end was cringe-worthy and so out of place. She felt shoehorned in to the story so everything could wrap up with a neat little bow. We hadn't seen her for half a book and when she reappears she's annoying and self-righteous. I'd have been happier if she didn't come back and we were just left with her story open-ended to imagine her life. Plus, Josie taking Ed Mae to vote for Barack Obama felt so forced and semi-racist. There was no point to that at all. I found the whole character depiction of Ed Mae to be a caricature stereotype of black women and to end with her voting for Obama was just a total cringe. It didn't fit the story at all and felt so awkward and weird although I guess it does finally confirm a timeline so there's that.
This book could have been really good and I admit there were chapters and occasional moments I really enjoyed but overall it was disappointing.
The author writes about some pretty heavy topics in this book - backwoods abortions, loss of a spouse/parent, grief, teen pregnancy, adoption, kidnapping, prison, unhappy partnerships, and redemption. It felt ambitious but I was looking forward to it. It ended up being a vague mess.
I know there is a golden rule in creative writing to "show don't tell" the reader what's happening but in The Accidentals it felt like that led to vague descriptions and a ton of missing details. I frequently found myself having to assume what was happening and wondering if I was correct. Situations or behavior would eventually be confirmed but not until a chapter or two later when more vague information was offered. It made me so frustrated. It felt like the author wanted to address tough subjects but then didn't really want to get into the meat of them which leads to the next point - the pacing was terrible.
The chapters alternate the character POV (which is fine) but huge chunks of time sometimes passed and there wasn't anything that ever fully explained how much time had passed. Months? A year? 2 years? 10 years? I could guesstimate and follow the story but there wasn't any actual confirmation. This got much worse in the second half of the book because it suddenly rushed through the final decades. The whole first half of the book spans maybe 4 - 8 years but the second half seems to fly through about 20 years. Again, I'm not really sure because details are missing.
I may be especially annoyed because the final chapter was such a letdown. The characters find themselves moving around a bit (Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, etc) but somehow end up in the same little town at the end which is just super convenient. Characters that had never met and lived in different cities are suddenly neighbors. The appearance of Josie at the end was cringe-worthy and so out of place. She felt shoehorned in to the story so everything could wrap up with a neat little bow. We hadn't seen her for half a book and when she reappears she's annoying and self-righteous. I'd have been happier if she didn't come back and we were just left with her story open-ended to imagine her life. Plus, Josie taking Ed Mae to vote for Barack Obama felt so forced and semi-racist. There was no point to that at all. I found the whole character depiction of Ed Mae to be a caricature stereotype of black women and to end with her voting for Obama was just a total cringe. It didn't fit the story at all and felt so awkward and weird although I guess it does finally confirm a timeline so there's that.
This book could have been really good and I admit there were chapters and occasional moments I really enjoyed but overall it was disappointing.