The Book of Accidents

by Chuck Wendig

Paperback

Published July 19, 2021 by Del Rey.

ISBN:: 978-1-5291-0108-9

(20 reviews)

Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there.

Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.

Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania.

Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver.

And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic.

This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil …

Long ago, Nathan lived in a house in the country with his abusive father—and has never told his family what happened there.

Long ago, Maddie was a little girl making dolls in her bedroom when she saw something she shouldn’t have—and is trying to remember that lost trauma by making haunting sculptures.

Long ago, something sinister, something hungry, walked in the tunnels and the mountains and the coal mines of their hometown in rural Pennsylvania.

Now, Nate and Maddie Graves are married, and they have moved back to their hometown with their son, Oliver.

And now what happened long ago is happening again . . . and it is happening to Oliver. He meets a strange boy who becomes his best friend, a boy with secrets of his own and a taste for dark magic.

This dark magic puts them at the heart of a battle of good versus evil and a fight for the soul of the family—and perhaps for all of the world. But the Graves family has a secret weapon in this battle: their love for one another.

2 editions

Mickey reviewed The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

Review of 'The Book of Accidents' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

2.5/5

This book started out with a cool concept, a creepy serial killer and a strange town, but as it went on it just never stopped adding more things. Too many concepts and ideas that never came together in a good way. It just unraveled and became very messy and I wasn’t a big fan. I really wish it cut back on a lot of the things it had and had more focus.

There were characters that felt very unnecessarily tacked on, weird twists just for the sake of twists, just strange things with no real purpose. It felt long, and not in a good way.

There were a lot of interesting ideas but would have done so much better as separate stories. I really wish they had been. Overall, I just didn’t really like it.

Enno reviewed The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

Review of 'The Book of Accidents' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

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.

brucy reviewed The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

Review of 'The Book of Accidents' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A horror book, that reads like a movie thriller. Really good and well developed story.

WellWorthARead reviewed The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

Review of 'The Book of Accidents' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

A mother's love, a father's pain, and a child who feels the suffering of everyone he sees are just three of the main elements I loved in this masterpiece of supernatural horror. I just now finished this book, and I'm trying to collect my thoughts, but I do believe my mind is literally blown away. I can think of nothing remotely adequate to express the sheer perfection of this story and the way the author kept so many plates spinning in the air at once without ever coming close to dropping even one. I don't feel like I should say anything about the plot because telling you more than what you see in the synopsis may take away the enjoyment of discovering it for yourself. I'm just going to focus a bit on the writing and say that at over 500 pages, not a single paragraph was wasted, the pace was flawless and the short chapters kept me hungry for more. Every time I would tell myself just one more chapter before I go to bed I would justify reading 3 or 4 more because like little salty snacks they were just too delicious to stop at one.

I love an old fashioned good versus evil story and Wendig delivers that in spades, but more than that he took the time to bring his characters to life, which for me is an important part of any horror novel because if I can not care about the characters I can not fear what may happen to them.
This is my first read by this author, although he has been on my radar for about a year now. I am sure this book is going on my best horror novels of 2021 list.

I received an advance copy for review.