The Book of Accidents

Release Date July 20, 2021

I’d like to thank Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Del Rey, and NetGalley for an ARC of this book to read and review.

A serial killer is sent to the electric chair. But is he really dead?

When his father dies of cancer Nate Graves is convinced by his wife Maggie and son Oliver to move into his ancestral home. Soon strange things start happening to each member of the family. When a boy named Jake befriends Oliver things start to escalate as the family has to fight their own inner and outer demons.

For the most part, I really enjoyed this book. It had a good amount of creepiness and mystery to it. At first, I was not too keen on the characters of Oliver or Maggie but I grew to accept them more as the book went on. The pace of the story was great. I didn’t feel like there was ever much downtime between significant events or revelations. The mix of supernatural and natural dangers combined really gave a sense of urgency to the plight of the family.

As I said for the most part I really enjoyed the book. However, the momentum of enjoyment I picked up reading the book would randomly be brought to a crashing halt. Now a little disclaimer here. I fully understand that a writer has every right to put whatever they want in THEIR books. But for me the fact that just about every time police were mentioned it was as monsters and criminals who would do things such as shoot people for filing unusual police reports if they weren’t white. Or depict them as corrupt villains who used their power for physical or sexual abuse and intimidation. I found this depiction of the police in the book just kinda off-putting at times. I’m not saying that a/some police characters can’t be villains. But to put a blanket over every one of them really took away from the enjoyment of the book for me. And yes I realize Nate was a cop but he isn’t anymore and just the fact that he is the one who puts forth some of the information makes his involvement in, knowledge of, or lack of intervention in (at least none mentioned) said police behavior a big question mark.

Still, overall I really enjoyed the book. I loved the supernatural elements and though sometimes I found some of it a little hokey, I loved the dialogue. I loved that Wendig for the most part made Oliver talk like an actual teenager instead of with perfect English grammar. I enjoyed the villain a lot. A villain should as or more interesting than the hero and this one was pretty interesting. I felt that everything was wrapped up very well without leaving a lot of unanswered questions and giving a sense of closure. This book is definitely worth a read.