The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig

Thank you to @delreybooks and @penguinrandomhouse for this review copy.

This book really took me by surprise. I wasn’t sure how much I’d like horror going into it, but once I picked it up I couldn’t stop reading.

Ultimately this is a story about family. The Book of Accidents begins when the Graves family move back into the father’s childhood home. From that point forward each family member begins experiencing disturbing events they can’t explain. Nathan, the father, grew up abused in the home and is reluctant to return. His wife, Maddie, begins losing track of time and awareness as she sculpts haunting reminders of a past event she doesn’t remember. Their child is Oliver, a sensitive soul who befriends a strange boy and leads the family down a dangerous path that might break them up for good.

I’m not a big fan of unreliable narrators in paranormal/horror books and thankfully you don’t get that here. Every strange, creepy occurance the Graves family experiences is real and at times other characters are there to witness the event as well. The story felt more eerie and creepy than scary, but I found that I enjoyed it. There are dark themes and some gory scenes, so if you’re squeamish you might want to be cautious going in. At 530 pages it’s a long book, but I never got bored and every scene felt like it had purpose. There are no loose ends and everything is tied together by the last page. It is just so well written and I’ll definitely pick up another Chuck Wendig book in the future.