The Book of Accidents
Ratings79
Average rating3.8
This is a case of a book just being too political for me. Read to escape and not have to listen to someone else's political views.
I was EATING THIS UP. Until like the last 200 pages when I got kind of bored.
I got to enjoy the majority of this book thinking it was going to be a 5 star, but the end was more of a 2 for me. So I averaged it out and hit it with a 4 because the majority of it was SO GOOD.
I have never read anything like this before. Maybe other books like this exist but it was new to me and I thought it was really interesting.
This one was a surprise in the best possible way for me and I couldn't get enough of it. I was sad when it was over.
The story itself is a great idea, but the execution was really poor. I found the pacing too fast and the characters too shallow. It was a really quick read, otherwise I would not have finished it.
Not quite the ending I was hoping for, but I'll take it. I could have done without the 102 mentions of global warming that actually seemed to have nothing to do with the plot, but otherwise this was creepy and sad and strangely relatable.
I was so looking forward to this..... Started off OK but halfway through it just unravelled into this part horror part fantasy hybrid thingy with parallel universes and talking boxes. Just not for me I guess. You might like it though.
This felt more like a contemporary fantasy thriller with horror elements than horror. I went in expecting a haunted house horror and felt a little thrown off by what I got, as such... I think my expectations clouded my overall enjoyment of the book and around about 70% it started feeling off for me.
Still, there were some great moments and Chuck is definitely a great writer. If you go into this one, just drop any expectations you have.
It is very difficult to define how I feel about this book. At first, I saw the things that I typically like about Chuck Wendig books - good pacing, humor, irreverence, bloody violence. But after a while it started to feel like a lot. The extremely self-aware dialogue felt like a lot, the many different POVs felt like a lot, and honestly, the fact that instead of ignoring that “funny feeling”, as Bo Burnham put it, that we're all feeling these days for the sake of escaping into a fantasy/horror novel, Wendig just leaned right into it, with not only characters bringing it up pretty regularly, but the whole story kind of hinges on it. Because Chuck Wendig is an asshole.
It starts simple enough, the way most horror stories begin. Nate Graves, his wife, Maddie, and son, Oliver, decide to move into Nate's childhood home after Nate's father dies and leaves the home to him in a roundabout way that's likely so he can screw Nate over one last time, as if a childhood of abuse wasn't enough. They decide to take the house for Oliver, who's extremely high empathy is making it difficult for him to even exist, and some woods and a fresh start seem like a good idea. It's not. Because as it turns out something has been going from world to world to get to Oliver, with the intention of ending everything once and for all.
Yes, that's right, this is a multi-verse story. We've got a lot of those lately, don't we? Must have something to do with that funny feeling again. Like Stories of Old on YouTube made an excellent video essay speculating why, which I highly recommend, though fair warning - it will likely make you cry and/or trigger an existential crisis. The Book of Accidents is very much in the vein of all these other multi-verse stories, except it calls out directly why we are so drawn to them right now - the impossibility of choice. The terror of id one thing had been different, we might be different. If we had been spared pain, if we had chosen someone else, if we had stood firm instead of running away. This book is about cycles of abuse, about how much you actually have to sacrifice to put more good in the world than bad, and finding your own power.
I think this book is fascinating with a lot of really cool ideas. I found that I didn't really love the experience of reading it though. It might have been because the dialogue was a little too on the nose. You know when an author is so good at making characters talk and act realistically, that it veers right into uncanny valley territory and your brain just refuses to accept it? That's kind of what this was like. The multiple POVs also felt tiresome, I really wanted to stick with one (if I could claim a preference, I think Maddie would have been good choice for a sole POV character). That said, the story was super cool. The horror aspects were awesome, the fantasy aspects were hella weird, and I love weird. I kind of just wish it were more of just one thing, or even a few things, rather than the explosion of things it is.
This was only okay. Even in this third revision of Wendig's self-proclaimed “trunk novel”, there was too much stuff for one book here, and the conclusion did not feel satisfying.
This book is an homage to the King classics. Long, developed, nuanced, scary. I enjoyed the setting and the story and can't wait to get to Wanderers soon.
If you are ready for a clusterf*&%! of a story dive on into this one! When I started reading this I tried to get a handle of what was going on but it wasn't until I just let the story unfold as it did that I started to enjoy this. There are about 7 different storylines and not all of them make sense to the story. However, I enjoyed it nonetheless. The characters are interesting - some loveable, some hateable. The premise of the book I haven't read before. I think I was just in the mood for a book that messed with my mind and kept me on my toes.
THIS IS NOT A HAUNTED HOUSE STORY!!!!! Between the cover, description, and book lists I really was expecting a haunted house story and was INCREDIBLY disappointed when no haunted house action was happening. Once I got over hoping the “haunted house” vibe would come I started to enjoy this more. So, if I can save someone from going into this being disappointed my job is done.
despite the fact that this isn't a very memorable book for me, i really enjoyed my time with it. i liked everything it had to say about abuse and cycles of abuse, and it used the elements of the story to drive its messaging in a really interesting way. i actually think the set up vs the action was really well balanced, and i liked the characters well enough to be invested in what happened to them. this book also has a lot of elements i'm a sucker for.
From start to finish this was a WILD ride and exactly what I was looking for. I love weird. I love good against evil. I love being scared. This has all that and then some.
I did feel it was a little long-in-the-tooth and could have been shorter is some spots but overall what a great Spooktober read and one I recommend if you want to be spooked out, BUT maybe don't read this one before bed
Fun premise, harkens back to some earlier Stephen King stories. Reads like a narrative that you'd lay out for a limited series on HBO. Drags a little in the middle, but taking anything out would leave enough plot holes. I haven't read a lot of his stuff, but picked up in a couple Easter eggs, which were fun. Enjoyable read. Recommend checking it out.
Thanks to Random House Ballantine and NetGalley for a complimentary digital ARC of this title. In addition to the ARC, I also purchased an audiobook version of this title. This review reflects my impressions of both the text and audiobook. The Book of Accidents is an epic novel combining gothic, supernatural, and cosmic horror with profoundly human themes. Nate (a fish and game officer), Maddie (an artist), and their highly empathetic son Oliver move into a old house, Nate's childhood home, and signs appear that they may be being haunted by Nate's late abusive father. However, this book quickly transforms itself and begins to unspool itself in anything but a standard haunted house story. Chuck Wendig has written a highly complex plot spanning and combining many different ideas together all around the themes of pain, empathy, generational trauma, suffering, and healing. The early chapters are short (and have amazing titles) and the pacing is a rapid and driven race forward as things get weirder and weirder. Then the pacing slows as more of the complexity and mystery of the book begins to be revealed. I became invested in the characters early on and never stopped caring about them. I was hooked by the premise and commend Wendig on writing something so original and interesting. My only critiques are that I think the book could have been a bit shorter, as the second half seemed to meander a bit, and I wanted to know more about some of the supernatural aspects of the book (especially Maddie and her art). Despite these critiques I loved this book. I really enjoyed the portions (majority) I listened to (read by Xe Sands and George Newbern), and felt the narrators did an excellent job of bringing the characters to life. I've seen other reviews and advertising comparing The Book of Accidents to the work of Stephen King. While The Book of Accidents is definitely written in Chuck Wendig's wonderful and distinctive voice, what this work has in common with King is the ability to use the fantastic, the frightening, and even the weird to point the reader toward reflection upon and empathy toward their own human condition. In that sense The Book of Accidents is truly a triumph. Like Wendig's prior book, Wanderers, I expect The Book of Accidents will be a book read, enjoyed, and discussed for many, many, years to come. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️
The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig is a study of different types of horrors. If you haven't read many Wendig books, Chuck writes with various styles and themes. Each one of his novels approaches the theme, whether horror or science fiction, originally. So, if I were to read passages from five different books blindly, I could not pull out a specific Wendig type style. He is an expert at matching tone to the narrative.
Also, I assume that Chuck is a reader, a man who appreciates the written word. I think that because he enjoys books as much as he does, it comes through his storytelling.
For instance, one of his earlier stories in his bibliography is the first book of the Miriam Black series, Blackbirds. Blackbirds stars Miriam Black, an alcoholic anti-protagonist who is cursed with the vision of the death of every person she physically comes into contact with. Miriam is brash and crude. The story is dark and twisty with a slight mystery element, but mostly it is of Miriam trying to survive in a world that hates and reviles her. It reminded me a lot of a much darker Jessica Jones-type character. It had a specific tone of roughness and desperation.
Another and one of my favorite books that I have read in the last five years is Wanderers. It is an epic horror survival story, which often is compared to Stephen King's The Stand. Again, excellent writing skills. When I read it, I could not say that it was a Wendig book, unlike a Stephen King book where I could pick it out in 3 pages.
All this brings me to The Book of Accidents, which seems very much like an amalgamation of the ability to write in various styles siphoned and condensed down into a gothic horror novel that touches on many of the cornerstones of horror. The Book of Accidents effectively has elements of preternatural horror, body horror, psychological, some apocalyptic, Lovecraftian, and even psycho killer style scenes. Wendig distilled the virtues of each of the horror disciplines down into an incredibly atmospheric read that even now, thinking about it, I know that I did not catch every little nuance, and it deserves a second read through.
The story starts with Nate Graves back in his hometown, following the death of his abusive father. Nate, his wife Maddie, and son Oliver move into Nate's childhood home. A home full of memories, not many of them positive. Those previous traumatic memories haunt Nate as if they are ghosts. Oliver, Nate's son, is an empath. He instinctually feels the pain of those around him. The less pain and slower rural lifestyle that the family is hoping for is meant to help Oliver deal with his abilities. However, Wendig describes that even smaller, more rural towns are full of horrors, just like big cities.
As the story progresses, Nate slowly begins to succumb to his brutal past and the PTSD of his childhood. He sees things that are not there; he has bouts of anger and depression. Maddie also has difficulties adjusting to life in this small town. She blacks out while using a chainsaw on a wood sculpture, and her creations come to life. It is difficult to tell what is real and what could be a psychological break from stress at this point in the story. Additionally, Maddie, as a character, is the glue that holds the family together. As her ability to deal with the reality of the events before her diminishes, she has difficulty coping, which begins to fracture the family.
The Book of Accidents plays on the horrors of the mind and the horrors of the unknown. However, I think much more importantly; it is a story about family and the invisible ties that bind individuals to each other and their past events. Nate has a great fear of passing the violence of his childhood on to Oliver through his actions. And in turn, Oliver senses the turmoil inside his father.
Oliver has a difficult time adjusting to school life. He eventually makes friends with other like-minded kids but runs into conflict when another new friend, an older boy named Jake, causes problems in Oliver's relationships. But from the get-go, readers pick up that Jake is more than meets the eye.
Wendig takes all of these bits and pieces of horror and conflict and creates a cohesive narrative that culminates in many jaw-dropping moments. If I were to tell you more, it would spoil the surprises. It jumps from serial killers, dark and evil books, demons, ghosts, and even science fiction elements. Oddly enough, in any other hands, this book would be an incohesive mess. But it all works. The serial killer angle and him disappearing moments before death, the psychological pain of Oliver's classmates, what Maddie does to make sure that they all survive. It all works, and not for one moment does this book let up. It is like a symphony starting with many discordant and uncomfortable notes that come together so fully the force of it nails you to your chair.
The Book of Accidents is another fantastic horror novel to add to Wendig's already impressive repertoire. It is a book of shock and pain and the thin grey line between good and evil. It touches on family and relationships as much as the supernatural aspects. He grinds it all together in a blender and what comes out is a hard-hitting story. It is an excellent book that will appeal to both readers who are new to Wendig's catalog and those of us who have read many of his stories. Go check it out.