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Jan 23, 2012

Shovelmonkey1 rated it:

I cannot believe this book is on the 1001 books list. Do the people who write the list not like people who read books anymore? Why would they punish us so? 1001 list writers, once again I question you. Why?

I didn't enjoy reading it and to say I found the story a pointless and unrewarding read is probably an understatement. The book seemed to be nothing more than a series of poorly strung together literary devices... or maybe it was a vehicle for the trundling out of a series of liter More...

5 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jun 12, 2008

Alicia rated it:

This is a must-read if you are a writer/poet (or poet who loves fiction). It's definitely a writer's book. I can see why many people would dislike it, but it's pure genius. JUST BRILLANT! If you understand lit-heads, poetry meter, characterization, plot lines, emotions, word choice, undercurrent and themes... Well, let's just say you're sure to enjoy and appreciate this novel and its style.

I love how it's broken up into 3 sections (the beginning, the middle and the end). I love how More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Feb 28, 2010

Tyler rated it:

Turns out the thirty year old Eggleston photo on the cover was my favorite thing about this book. Smith can certainly turn out some lovely prose, and couple it with unique approaches to fictional perspective, maybe along the lines of Virginia Woolf's flowery poeticism and narrative experiments. And there are plenty of interesting pieces of the puzzle here (I feel OK using this cliché since one of the book's characters is obsessed with the idea of clichéd language), but they never congeal into an More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 28, 2007

Robin rated it:

I love Ali Smith. She's so inventive and irreverent. The Accidental sprang from a dream she had, and it's dreamlike. Smith often uses multiple perspectives to weave together a story. I happen to like this--and I find her really gifted at inhabiting different voices. Her other book, Hotel World, really knocked my socks off too. But the Accidental asks different questions (Hotel World was kind of a mystery about a girl who fell down an elevator shaft). Questions like: who are we and how do More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 03, 2007

Elizabeth added it

I read this a while ago, and recently someone wrote me to ask what I thought about it. What I remember is that I love Smith's writing, the way she's made stream-of-consciousness completely contemporary and engaging. The story was confusing, and the person who wrote to me proposed such a brilliant (and retrospectively obvious) interpretation of the book. It suddenly all made sense, and I can't remember if I thought of it at the time at all. Anyway. It's a great book, and she's an amazing writer. More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2010

Erin rated it:

I don't relish giving a book one star, but The Accidental was the rare book that I found so unreadable that I couldn't even finish it. The writing style was very affected and intentionally obtuse, making the book unpleasant and difficult to read. The characters were whiny and self-involved beyond all reason. There were huge logic gaps (such as why Amber was allowed to hang about the house, uninvited and unknown to all of them-- hello?!) and pithy observations. Ugh. I struggled and struggle More...

4 comments like (9 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2007

Debbietola rated it:

I really enjoyed the style and writing - it's interesting to read each piece from the different perspectives of the main characters. I'd never read Ali Smith before so was very pleased and impressed. I must admit, though, I'm left a little disappointed, as I don't think I fully "got" it at the end. The book jacket mentions the "wonderfully enigmatic conclusion" and I agree it was definitely enigmatic! Didn't take away from me enjoying the book, but I wouldn't recommend to More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 27, 2009

Carrie rated it:

The Accidental is a book with a lot of literary buzz in Britain. It is a finalist for the Whitbread Award and for the Booker. I had heard raves about it on Bookslut, too, so I decided to pick up a copy. I was, however, disappointed.*

I can understand why The Accidental is getting a lot of noise. Its a very "writerly" book and very good in that sense. It's written in a stream of consciousness type style, with every chapter representing the internal thoughts of one of the four More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2011

Rowena rated it:

I saw this book on a lot of readers' "worst books ever" lists on the Guardian Books site which put me off reading it for a year. Most of the listed books were bestsellers, which should've hinted something- the more hype there is around a book, the more a lot of people hate it if they didn't love it. Bestsellers are marmite. But when I have a little marmite with butter on some toast I think "mmm pretty nice, definitely wanna finish this morsel but certainly not gonna crave another More...

0 comments like

Jun 21, 2011

Carol rated it:

Ali Smith has a lot of dazzling literary tricks and techniques at her disposal, and she uses them to great effect, yet without neglecting to write an engrossing story with really interesting characters. The narrative concerns the Smarts: mother Eve, son Magnus, daughter Astrid, and step-father Michael. While they are on holiday in a rented house in Norfolk, a mysterious woman named Amber turns up at their house and worms her way into their lives. Amber seduces and manipulates the Smarts, individ More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 09, 2011

Jeruen rated it:

Let me start by saying that somehow, I get the feeling that British fiction has some sort of common denominator. Note that I have no expertise in literary theory, so I am not making any claims here. It was just something that I noticed, after reading books by Irvine Welsh, such as The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, and by Will Self, such as Being Dead.

Anyway, this book is rather different in writing style. Sentences seem to flow to each other, and the narratives are centered on a More...

0 comments like

Sep 22, 2010

Joselito rated it:

I like the language of this book. So original, refreshing and innovative. Unlike other writers who experiments with how they write, which often makes their work unintelligible (Oh, Gaddis, how could you?!), here you marvel at Ali Smith's love for words and her story which you'll have no difficulty following.

Probably the newest book I've read so far in the 1001 Books list, this was published in 2006 and mentions Beyonce and David Beckham somewhere. The female 13-year old protagonist, More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Sep 05, 2010

Erin rated it:

Told from multuple perspectives, The Accidental is the story of a British family that seems normal and happy on the surface, but something much more fragile lurks beneath this facade.

Astrid, the youngest member of the family at twelve years old, begins the story while the family is on vacation. Angsty and often irritated, Astrid's one hobby is the video camera her parents have purchased for her. Stepfather Michael, an English professor, makes his way around his university, sleeping More...

0 comments like

Jul 28, 2010

Al rated it:

The Smart family is taking their summer holiday in Norfolk. Eve, the mother, is the author of a moderately popular series of rather quaint books about the hypothetical lives of people who suffered tragic deaths, continuing their life stories as if they had lived. Michael is a literature professor at a mid level English University. His specialty is seducing his students, one in particular every year. Eve has two children by another marriage. Astrid, a precocious 12 year old, spends most of he More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 26, 2009

Debbie (Readerbuzz) rated it:

I read reviews, I listen to others talk about books, I seek out books that others rave about, and nevertheless, many books disappoint.

The Accidental did not disappoint.

And how did I run across it? Well, (forgive me this) it was quite accidental. As many good things are.

The Accidental has everything I dream of finding in a good book. It's smarter than me (the most important quality I look for in a good book or a good friend). It has intriguing characters. It h More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 20, 2009

Bart rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 25, 2009

Judy rated it:

For the first 2/3 of this book, I was set to rate it two stars, despite being the winner of the Whitbread Award and a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, but the final third raised my rating to three stars. At its most basic, the story revolves around a young woman, Amber, who arrives unexpectedly at a family's summer cottage in rural England, is taken in by the family, manipulates each membr of the unhappy Smart family, wreaks havoc in their interrelationships, and the disappears just as abrupt More...

0 comments like

Apr 08, 2010

Carys rated it:

As a former musician – I use the word ‘former’ advisedly, every time I get near a piano nowadays, four pairs of hands are at the ready to “help” with the notes – the word ‘accidental’ conjures musical connotations. An accidental involves the introduction of a sharp, or a flat, or a natural note, which essentially breaks the rules of the key signature; it results in a note that does not belong to the scale of the piece. This is how I picture Amber, Ali Smith’s mysterious visitor who turns the liv More...

0 comments like

Jul 12, 2011

MJ rated it:

A flat-out triumph of structure, style, shifting narrative voices, rhythm and language. A pitch-perfect technical masterpiece. Split into three components—the beginning, the middle and the end—the story moves between four perspectives: daughter, son, father, mother. Each section describes various events around a holiday trip to Norwich and the arrival of Amber, a charismatic drifter who changes her behaviour to accommodate each person.

A very tight, free indirect style* is deployed to More...

5 comments like (9 people liked it)

Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it

Scottish writer Ali Smith has a good stiff breeze filling her writerly sails. Her novel Hotel World (2001) was short-listed for the Booker Prize, as was The Accidental. Both books lost, but Smith did claim the prestigious 2005 Whitbread Prize for The Accidental. Critics praise her handling of multiple points of view (the chapters are narrated by each of the characters) and are in awe of her ability to transform a simple story into something wholly engaging and thematically complex, with echoes o

More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 27, 2011

Lisa (scarlet21) rated it:

Quite thought provoking. I liked the way each character had a part to play, with their angsts and faults to the fore and how as the book moved on with each voice these problems seeme to lessen and become less important - all thanks to the mysterious Amber (Alhambra)- The Accidental in the title - the woman who just turns up out of the blue and becomes part of their lives and turns them inside out. Quite what Amber is is part of the charm of the story, make your own mind up, is she a charlatan, More...

0 comments like

Oct 05, 2010

Michael rated it:

This story utilizes the classic technique of the lacanian other as a way to explore the arteries of a family unit. The sojourn in to boring middle class existence, what amber brings, brings with it as you expect a plethora of secrets and disturbing truths. The introduction of her as a character is really difficult to explain as she just shows up and the family accept her as a part of their holiday experience. What strikes me though is that a lot of what the author attempts to portray as profoun More...

0 comments like

Jan 17, 2010

Vikas rated it:

I was disappointed. This one I had in my “to read” list for a long.You may say this happened to be a perfect case of “High expectation and low deliverance”
The story plot looked very filmy (In India many Bollywood movies are made on this kind of plot). An angel enters a life of unhappy and distressed family. And in the end every characters is transformed for good. Didn’t seem to me a very fresh idea.
As I had already read some rave reviews on this book, I felt that I really missed som More...

0 comments like

Jul 07, 2011

Rob rated it:

One reviewer described this book, Orange Prize Winner in 2005, as a "clever stunt, albeit one carried off with pizzazz". That pretty much tallies with my own opinion - experimentation with form is clearly the aim and, in many ways, we should be thankful for novels like this that attempt to do play around a bit - even if my GoodReads pal Tom was irritated by the brevity of Smith's sentences. Certainly, I found myself less gripped by the narrative as the book wears on, even if the writin More...

0 comments like

Mar 18, 2009

George rated it:

A stranger shows up at the house where a family is vacationing. Assumptions are made about her identity and she is let in. Her presence changes things drastically, forcing each of the family members to confront things about themselves and each other. The family is very much of the dysfunctional type that you expect to find in independent movies. While most of those families have a sympathetic character who is non-dysfunctional (or less-dysfunctional), it is hard to identify that character here. More...

0 comments like

Mar 03, 2009

Djrmel rated it:

This is the first Mann Booker shortlist book I've been disappointed in. (Of course, I haven't read them all, so maybe that's not saying much.) A young woman shows up at the holiday home of a family, and because no one in this family really talks to each other, she's able to stay. The story is told in five person first person - the four family members and a strange fifth voice that drops in occasionally to do a stream of consciousness thing that escaped my interest. In my opinion, the four family More...

0 comments like

Jan 23, 2009

Robin rated it:

This book was amazingly compelling, imaginative and thought-provoking. I reread the opening pages as soon as I was finished because I needed to make sense of the wacky ending. I also gave it to my husband so that he would read it and discuss it with me. For the first time I looked up the Reading Group Guide analysis and questions for guidance.

That was disappointing because there's was purely a narrative description. I already knew what happened in the book; what I wanted to hav More...

0 comments like

Mar 23, 2009

Dawn rated it:

The Accidental was the story of a family of four, each with their own difficulties and quirks, who are changed by a mystery woman who appears at their house, stays with them for a while, and then, just as suddenly, departs. The parents, Michael and Eve, and the children, Magnus and Astrid, are a family with no real ties to each other. They don't communicate, they don't try to help each other, they are really only a family in name. Then, one day, Amber appears in their house, each family member t More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Oct 19, 2011

Aaron rated it:

Interesting novel, this.

I will freely admit from the get-go that I'm not certain I completely got it, but I did quite enjoy reading this novel enough to find another novel by the same author.

This novel centers the four members of a upper middle class British family whose home is (sort of) invaded by a complete stranger who has a different and lasting effect on all of them. The daughter Astrid befriends her. The son Magnus becomes her lover. Father Michael seems to only More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 28, 2010

Wanda rated it:

I hesitate to write this review because so many people actually liked this book. I frankly found it deliberately obtuse, unaccessible, and pretentious. It was sort of like reading the post-modern philosophers who are so obscure and self-conscious that you wonder if THEY actually know what they are writing about. This was one of our book club choices and we really wanted to like it. The synopsis seemed intriguing, the reviews were glowing for the most part, and it looked like a relatively fast r More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)