Favorite Quotes:

My sister and I don’t often go in the room where Dad sleeps. Our mother’s blood made a dark lake on the wood floor by the bed… We open our mother’s drawers and touch her things, drawing them to our faces, then lift up a corner of the rug to look at the stain. It is a secret thing we do together and don’t talk about afterward.

We kept our distance from our aunt’s person. Frances had what June and I referred to as the Lady Schoolteacher Smell, a cross between dust and mold, chalk and cloves, face powder and powdered milk. The smell wasn’t unpleasant exactly, but being around her called to mind antique shops and stuffed animals that had once been alive.

Baby Girl, she was the be-all end-all of ugly. Looked like some kind of evil slapped that child upside the head, said, There, take that, be a big old ugly catfish. Hooked and brought up hard. All she needed was a set of whiskers and a tail.

Where I come from, people say you’re expecting, as if it’s a package coming in the mail or the plumber. I shudder when I think of telling my poor father I’m expecting. What will he say? What are the odds? How many females in one family can get knocked up? We’re obviously fertile as turtles and reproductively challenged; in my case, this new thing called the pill being nearly impossible to come by if you’re a nice unmarried girl in Tennessee.

My mother had taught me to always say ma’am to white women, but to always cross my fingers when I said it. Much as I hated myself for doing it, every now and then a ma’am would pop out of my mouth like a sneeze you can’t hold back.


My Review:

This was a slowly building, beautifully nuanced, and thoughtfully written book, full of perceptive observations, colorful descriptions, and oddly compelling characters. Written from multiple points of view (which I greatly enjoyed) and covering a lifetime of unexpected complexities and daunting experiences for each character, the engaging storylines were expertly textured though not always comfortable as each character faced numerous hardships and unique challenges. It was as if this family was cursed!

Ms. Gwin’s writing was highly descriptive as well as evocative, emotive, and poignant. She squeezed my heart but she also pulled more than a few smirks and barked chuckles for balance. It was not an easy or pleasant era to live through for women and minorities; I remember many of the events and trends mentioned all too well and not at all fondly. It was more than a bit eye-opening and a pleasant relief to realize how far we’ve advanced from those stilted limitations, and constricting and ignorant social mores of the time. There are still vast areas in need of improvement, which I am still hoping to see before my final dirt nap.

3 stars

This book was a bit of a mixed bag for me, to the point that, despite having finished reading this a few days ago, I’m still struggling to gather my thoughts together so I can write a coherent review. On the surface, the story sounds simple enough: it is the year 1957 and the McAlister family – Olivia, her husband Holly, their 2 young daughters Grace and June – live an ordinary life in the small town of Opelika, Mississippi. Holly is a bookkeeper at the local lumber mill while Olivia is a stay-at-home mother whose only pastime outside of taking care of the household is watching over the birds that seem to like making a home in the family’s backyard. As an interracial family living in a society where the seeds of racial divide were starting to fester, the McAlisters kept to themselves as much as possible, often not engaging much with the outside world aside from the regular routine of work and school. Feeling restless and blown off course, Olivia dreams of returning to the much larger life she had prior to her marriage, where she ran the main office for a landing boat factory in New Orleans, during a time when everyone was treated the same regardless of the color of one’s skin. It is this feeling of being blow off course to a place where she doesn’t belong -- similar to the “accidentals” (migratory birds found outside of their normal geographic range) she sometimes sees in her yard – that triggers a strong reaction in Olivia when she finds out that she is pregnant again. The fateful decision that Olivia makes sets in motion a trajectory that has an unexpected and drastic impact not only on her husband and daughters, but also on other individuals whose lives end up intersecting with her family’s.

There were things that I felt worked well with this story, the biggest one being character development, especially with the two sisters at the center of the story – Grace and June. However, even the “supporting” characters were well-developed, which is especially significant given the fact that these characters only feature once or twice in the story, yet I felt like I knew them as well as I knew the main characters. Having each chapter alternately narrated from the first person perspective of the various characters definitely helped, as each was able to provide some insight into their relevant backstories. I also thought it was clever how the title and the overall theme of birds and nature were incorporated into the story. The parallels between the flight patterns of the “accidentals” and how the characters led their lives were interesting and elevated the story a bit for me from a literary standpoint.

With that said, there were quite a few things about this book that frustrated me and therefore made the reading experience a bit tedious. First and foremost was the writing, which was inconsistent — there were some sections where the descriptions were either too vague or abstract imagery was used to refer to something that could’ve been described in a more straightforward manner (i.e.: pregnancy), which at times made it difficult to understand what was happening in a particular scene. At the same time, there were also sections that dwelled too much on descriptions that didn’t seem to have much to do with the plot (something that I like to call “gratuitous descriptive imagery”). The other issue was the pacing of the story, which, as other reviewers have commented, was a bit messy. The story supposedly spanned a 50 year timeframe, however as the story progressed, the only indication there was of the time period was the mention of various historical events, mostly referenced only in passing. In terms of subject matter, the story did touch on some pretty heavy societal topics such as abortion, teen pregnancy, homosexuality, racism and segregation, mental illness, cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc., but most were only glossed over and not explored in-depth. It seemed that the story tried to cover too much ground, which caused its focus to waver and made the story a bit hard to follow.

Overall, this book had a lot of potential and is definitely worth a read, it’s just that it would’ve been better if the story had been more focused and more tightly written. Now of course, it’s possible the story was deliberately written this way in keeping with the “accidentals” theme, which is fine, just need to be aware going in that more focused may be needed when reading.

Received ARC from William Morrow (HarperCollins) via NetGalley.

June and Grace are sisters and their lives change when their mother makes a decision that sends both of their lives down a different path. Without a mother at a young age, both girls make life choices that could have been different had their mother stayed in their lives til they were older. Grace gets pregnant at a young age and has to deal with those consequences and June is caught up in Grace's drama and has some of her own!

I love a story that spans many years and centers around how one generations decisions impacts future generations. June and Grace react in very different ways to the death of their mother and then to see that impact others was very entertaining.

Told through multiple points of view, I enjoyed seeing a fuller picture of the story from the lens of quite a few people. There are even two external to the family that narrate and that was so interesting to read their chapters. I have to admit I was nervous/sad that neither June nor Grace narrate the last chapter, but in the end I can say it worked and I was glad to have resolution to that minor plot line (sorry vague, no spoilers!)

I loved Minrose Gwin's ability to really send the reader back to place and time. I felt swept up in the late 50s in the south and the way she progressed the story through time seemed seamless. I am intrigued to read The Queen of Palmyra as it seems similar to this story with a distinct setting and an interesting plot to follow.

A family history of the consequences of a back room illegal abortion. When Olivia McAlister dies do to complications from a blotched abortion June and Grace, her 8 and 10 year old daughters and her husband Holly have to make themselves carry on with life. The book told mainly by June and Grace takes the readers from there childhood until there final days. Along the way it shows how things that happen in childhood can affect a person until their dying day. While not a feel good novel by any stretch of the imagination it is well written and brings light to a important issue that affects people to this day. Highly recommend.




Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to review The Accidentals.

Did not finish. Being a lover of Southern Literature , I thought that I would like this. Maybe, I will try it again at a different time. I found it too depressing.