Book Review: The Accident Season by Moïra Fowley-Doyle

Genre: YA Contemporary
Publication: August 2015 by Kathy Dawson Books
Acquisition: bought

Synopsis:

Every October Cara and her family become inexplicably and unavoidably accident-prone. Some years it's bad, like the season when her father died, and some years it's just a lot of cuts and scrapes. This accident season—when Cara, her ex-stepbrother, Sam, and her best friend, Bea, are 17—is going to be a bad one. But not for the reasons they think.

Cara is about to learn that not all the scars left by the accident season are physical: There's a long-hidden family secret underneath the bumps and bruises. This is the year Cara will finally fall desperately in love, when she'll start discovering the painful truth about the adults in her life, and when she'll uncover the dark origins of the accident season—whether she's ready or not.

(from Goodreads)

4 / 5 Stars

The Accident Season wasn't what I thought it would be but I don't think I'm disappointed by that.

I don't want to give too much away but I did have some assumptions and I wasn't quite right about any of them.

The story is fabulous though and I loved the characters.

Here's the thing -- The Accident Season is a very deep book. It's a book, to quote the dust jacket that "captures that time in our lives when our hearts crack open and the raw secrets of our true selves burst forth" -- yeah...can't say that has ever happened to me. Raw secrets and hearts cracking open? That's not really my style.

Even with all the feelings and really deep meanings behind a lot of things, The Accident Season isn't just a contemporary and even with the touch of strange and unknown, it isn't just a mystery. I think that's why it worked for me. Honestly, if raw, hearts cracking, feelings everywhere was all that it was, I would have passed it over in a heart beat cause...yeah...

Overall though, I was surprised and glad that I stuck with it.

I do have to say, don't let the synopsis fool you (like it did to me!). The Accident Season is pretty much 100% a contemporary story and if you're looking for something a little more, it may not be for you. What I did love though was that it's the type of book that isn't going to be the same thing for everyone.