A disconnected family holidaying in Norfolk find themselves host to a woman named Amber, whom no one has actually invited. Latching onto each of the characters, and transforming them in different ways, Amber is both cryptic and honest, but never truly revealed to any of the family members, or the reader.

The stream-of-consciousness writing was a bit much to take in places; I found the simpler passages and paragraphs much more affecting than the slightly pretentious areas of writing, which I will admit to skipping rather than get irritated out of the story, which was otherwise engrossing and compelling… Astrid is a strikingly portrayed girl on the cusp-of-teenage-hood, her brother Magnus is shockingly sad, their stepfather Michael oddly stereotypical among them, and their mother, Eve, somehow the one who – of all of them - must be woken or changed. Amber (or Alhambra, named for the cinema where she was conceived) is an enigma, but her impact is more important than the details of her life.

I didn’t come away from this novel with a new favourite, but it did make me think for a while. ( )

The Accidental was my first taste of Ali Smith's writing. An unusual novel, it follows a disjointed family on a holiday in Norfolk (somewhat close to home!); mother Eve, with writer's block; children Astrid, obsessed with videoing everything, and Magnus, depressed that he may have been responsible for a friend's suicide; and step-father, Michael, who is a little too friendly with his university students. One evening, Amber enters their home and their lives, mistaken by each family member to be there on another's invitation, until she well and truly settles with them. Each member of the family becomes entranced by Amber, who never reveals who she really is or why she is there.

Written in three sections, fittingly entitled the begining, middle and end, The Accidental follows the family over the several weeks with Amber, and then their return to their lives at home. 12-year old Astrid was by far my favourite character, and the chapters dedicated to her story held my interest the most. With a voice most original and captivating, Astrid's representation of a 12-year old's world felt so real, it was as if a child had wrote it.

The stream of consciousness style of writing is certainly not for everyone, but I found each character's voice unique and with their own vulnerabilities. Perhaps the only negativity I felt for the book is Amber herself. I just never connected with her, could never bring myself to care enough about her. But thankfully this book was not about her alone, but each character had their part, their tale to tell. Thanks to Ali Smith's skilful writing, the story had come full circle by the end. I will admit that I did not fall instantly for Smith's unusual style, but it has intrigued me enough that I shall be reading more of her work, especially Girl Meets Boy, her contribution to the Canongate Myths.

Eve and her husband Michael are writers. They and their children Astrid and Magnus have rented a holiday home in Norfolk for the summer, so that Eve can work on her new book. One evening, a stranger named Amber arrives at the door claiming that her car has broken down.

Amber gradually worms her way into each family member's life. Each chapter is told from the perspective of a different family member, and we see only their perceptions of Amber as she doesn't have a voice. It soon transpires that Amber is a little unorthodox, and the book is about how Eve, Michael, Astrid and Magnus deal with this.

This book is perfectly well-written, and I enjoyed Astrid and Magnus's chapters (Eve and Michael aren't the most sympathetic characters you'll ever come across) but the ending left me feeling quite ambivalent about the whole story. It didn't seem like it had much to say really, and I certainly wasn't gripped by any of the plotting, such as it was. I wondered if I had missed the point actually, given that I didn't get the Alhambra thread one little bit, but maybe it just wasn't my kind of story. There are plenty more interesting books to read than this I think. ( )

Pitch perfect evocations of the inner monologues of four characters, as many reviewers have noted. (For example, www.reviewsofbooks.com/accidental.) All that is tremendously enjoyable, especially moments when the ventriloquism becomes suddenly so strong that the reader comes to an awareness of their own previous awareness of the ways the character had been evoked. For example: one of the characters, Astrid, is a twelve-year-old girl; she uses the expression 'id est' and 'i.e.' way too much, and slightly inaccurately. Then, all of a sudden, we hear her rehearsing the 'meaning' of 'id est' as part of her inner monologue, and it turns out she not only doesn't understand it (as we suspected), but she doesn't understand that her explanation isn't an definition (she just says 'i.e.' comes from 'id est'). The realization that the author knows her character does not know she does not understand the idea of a definition, and that that misunderstanding is what produces the character's solecisms, is itself a higher-order misunderstanding than we might have thought. (We would have expected an inaccurate definition, something like 'id est means 'that'.') So we think back on our own previous sense of the character's awareness of herself, and we realize it wasn't as prescient as the author's.

Okay, that's a bit abstract: but it is what happens as I read some passages, and it's what gives them their uncanny verisimilitude.

On another level I was less persuaded by the book. Reviewers tend to always note that the central character, Amber, is never clearly defined, and that is certainly right and also intentional. But the manner of her ill-definition is actually quite clear--sometimes too clear for me. Amber is (a) a typical figure of a person with intense unaccountable insight, whose function is to perceive, empathize, and heal, and (b) a typical figure of a person who is unaccountably good as sizing people up, and taking advantage of them -- to rob them either physically or emotionally. The difficulty I had with this is that these two are both, by themselves, familiar, and their juxtaposition doesn't produce any special meaning. ( )

I was gripped by this book from the first page. Each of the complex characters has a unique voice which affects the style of the narration, giving each part of the book a distinctive and intense feel. The variety of different styles (even switching to poetry at one point) could easily result in a confusing and structureless story in the hands of a less talented author, but instead simply adds to the feeling of isolation each member of the Smart family struggles with.

Unfortunately, I found the ending weak and disappointing. The characters that had seemed so vivid and realistic in the start had certainly developed through the story but didn't seem to have ended up in any definite place by the end of the novel. Too many loose ends were left untied and the half-explanation of Amber's motives were unsatisfying, especially after the few tantalising glimpses we get of her past (although perhaps no explanation at all would've better suited the haunting presence she has throughout the novel).

Despite this, the innovative style of this novel definitely makes it a must read. ( )