A review by rcriii
The Accidental, by Ali Smith

2.0

I tried reading this book but had trouble at first. I was coming down with a fever and I cannot read heavy books because I get delerious and dream about them. The book is written in short, declarative sentences and a stream if consciousness style. I came back to it after by fever broke and ended up reading half if it. I had read good things about this author so I gave it a chance. The characters are deeply unlikeable. Astrid is a teenager with some sort of angst and a love if filming. Magnus, the brother drove a schoolmate to suicide. Michael the step father is uninterested in parenting and sleeps with his students. It is unclear why they would sleep with him. Eve, the mother is a writer who had had some recent success but now is failing to make progress on a book she has contracted to write. I thought the book might get better but it did not. The book also shifts points if view with no warning, sometimes in the middle if a sentence. Into all this lives comes Amber, who basically tricks them into taking her in, and ingratiates herself with each if them. It is in fact quite clever how she does this, she just says as little as possible and each assumes she is a friend of the other.

Probably the best sub-plot is Magnus'. His inner dialog as he deals with his guilt is believable to me. But the main plot with Amber leaves me little faith that we'll get a resolution. So I must leave this book half-