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. ( )

For a book that was experiental in style I found this easy to read. I was impressed how the author managed to portray the difference perspectives, but maintain the same voice. There were references to Alice in Wonderland in the text, and i enjoyed how Amber's dialogue and actions sometimes resembled that of the characters in Wonderland. Some of the details were quite lovely and hilarious. ( )

At first I found the style of writing off-putting. Everything was in such short, simple sentences, it looked like a first-grade reader. But as it went on, I began to see how well it worked for the type of story. It really made it feel like a direct link to the characters' thoughts, and I liked the rhythm of it.

The story itself was engrossing, and while I wish we'd learnt a little more about Amber, she was such a mystery to the family, it makes sense to leave her a mystery to the reader as well. ( )

A middle-class family's summer holiday is disturbed by the arrival of an unknown woman who has a profound effect on each of them. I was pleasantly surprised by this book, having read some negative comments about it. With each chapter it changes perspective from the interloper, the 12 year old daughter, the depressed 17 year old son, the philandering step-father and the writer mother. Each perspective had its own distinctive style. It was beautifully written but still easy to understand. ( )

A self-satisfied book about a middle class couple on holiday in East Anglia & being conned in a middle class way. I finished it (because I always do) but was not satisfied by having done so and should have abandoned it. Gave it to Oxfam. ( )

Interesting book. I liked the different perspectives the book presents, but can't say that I didn't really get it--especially not the ending... ( )

I read this a while ago and can't remember much about it, except that it was quite easy to read and an interesting story about a girl who latches on to a family. ( )

A family of four are renting a house in Norfolk for a holiday. They are quite fragmented, the daughter Astrid is 12 and is going through an awkward stage on the threshold of womanhood. She is obsessed with filming everything with her new camera and won't touch any of the furniture in the house or the cutlery as she doesn't know who has touched it previosuly. Marcus is the 16 year old son who has taken to taking his dinner upstairs to eat and being even more anti social than usual. His mother is really beginning to worry about him. Michael is their step-father the children put up with. He lectures in English and Literary Criticism but has a more personal relationship with some of his students. Eve, their mother and Michael's wife, is an author who has suddendly found her brand of novels in the "Genuine Article Series" hit the big time.

One day out of the blue a woman turns up at the front door saying she is late. She is invited in by Michael who assumes she is something to do with Eve. Eve later assumes she is one of Michael's girls. It turns out none of them do and in the process of her spending her holiday with them, Amber learns their secrets and somehow manages to bring them together as a family, for a time at least.

The novel was split into three main parts (beginning, middle and end) with each character narrating a section including Amber. What I loved about it was that each voice was different and you got the sense that it really was someone different telling you their version of events. I particularly enjoyed one section were Michael was thinking in sonnets and his section was all written in poetry. I really enjoyed this novel and I liked that it took the family back to their "real life" after their time with Amber at the holiday home. I can definitely see why it won the Whitbread Prize and was nominated for both The Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction. ( )

Hard to get into (the first chapter is too stream of conciousness for my taste) but ultimately rewarding. I loved Eve (the mother's) book ideas and Q & A sessions. ( )

Each member of the family is treading water existentially: the precocious preteen, the obsessive adolescent, the philandering scholar and the floundering writer. Enter Amber, the accidental, the catalyst that pushes them under or shocks them into action. Complex and accessible, full of panache and verve, Ali Smith is well worth reading. -Emily

Heather O'Neill plays Amber, a mysterious stranger who wangles her way into the lives of a vacationing English family spending the summer in a remote cottage. O'Neill reads with studious detachment and a persistent air of mischief, as if the entire story is a particularly juicy practical joke. Given Amber's predilection for wreaking havoc in her new adopted family's comfortably misguided lives, the emotion is supremely apropos. O'Neill is joined by a cast of performers, including Ruth Moore as the perpetually harried, perpetually preoccupied Eve, who spends all her time dreaming of the characters of the latest historical novel she's writing, and Stina Nielsen as Astrid, a 12-year-old with a frightening imagination and a propensity for recording the world on her video camera. The bulk of the book, though, is read by O'Neill, who provides a suitably nuanced reading, at times placid, at times flashing an air of free-floating menace. It is her work, above all, that brings Smith's novel to fully fleshed existence.

I became addicted to this book, and am happy that it wasn't 1,700 pages, because my work would have suffered. Similar to "The Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" another truly novel novel from the UK, this book took me into minds I couldn't otherwise imagine inhabiting, and made me like people I couldn't otherwise imagine liking. ( )

I haven't been keen on some of Smith's work, but I love this. She gets the voices just right. ( )

between the critical hype over this book and my great enjoyment of smith's short stories, i began this book with great expectations and finished it, well, somewhat satisfied.

it took a little while for me to be able to get into the story. where the smart family is depressing and boring in their dysfunctional averageness, amber is annoyingly overconfident and unbelievably unconventional. ultimately, though, she serves as an excellent catalyst, and the internal and external changes she brings about in each member of the smart family had me transfixed.

this is a novel of ordinary characters, extraordinarily written and worth reading. ( )

http://hollybooknotes.blogspot.com/20... ( )

Let me make two confessions before I begin: 1) I'm partial to books with multiple narrators or points of view; 2) I generally don't care for adolescent narrators. So naturally, the structure of The Accidental immediately appealed to me, but I was also immediately put off by the first sizable chapter, narrated by 12-year old Astrid Smart. I stuck with it and ended up very happy that I did. Many reviewers have complained that Amber, a central character whose presence in the Smarts' vacation home, remains a cypher. But that's exactly what I believe Smith intended. The novel isn't about Amber, except as a catalyst for change within the family. When she arrives, Eve, Michael, Magnus, and Astrid are each miserable in his or her own way, and they are all miserable as a family. The changes Amber provokes seem to leave everyone happier--but are they? When I got to the end of the book, I felt totally confused. What had happened? Well, I don't want to give anything away, but I went back and reread the last 80 pages or so, and the effort was totally worth it. I loved this novel, its freshness and authenticity, and I'll be looking for more by Ali Smith. ( )

After page 38, this book is great... ( )

Smith has a habit of changing from one generational voice to the next. Although it is an impressive technique, it could be very annoying. The novel was good, but not good enough. I didn't quite understand it, and I thought it was a pretty terrifying book because of the anticipation it builds up. Sadly, it doesn't deliver. ( )

In the kitchen, "instant" is rarely better than "slow-cooked." What would you rather have - Folgers crystals or fresh brewed? Cut-and-bake cookie dough or dough made from scratch? Microwave or stove-top oatmeal?

Novels, on the other hand, can sometimes benefit from a little Hamburger Helper-like assistance. Especially those that deal with family dynamics. Why spend 200 pages setting up why mom - and dad, and son, and daughter - act the way they do? You can communicate the same information much more quickly by manufacturing a conflict and revealing character traits simply by showing how each family member reacts to the unexpected event. The trick is to make sure the conflict doesn't overtake the rest of the story.

In The Accidental, Ali Smith introduces a mysterious visitor, Amber, to quick-bake her character development. This vagabond easily enters the vacation home of the dysfunctional Smart family because each member has a mistaken idea of who she is. They all think she is someone else's guest.

Amber ends up being a different person to each of the Smarts. Her interactions with the skirt-chasing father, the insecure mother, the depressed teen son, and the angst-filled pre-teen daughter are all told from that family member's perspective - and each of those perspectives paint a wildly different picture of Amber. While trying to figure out this stranger, they start figuring out more about themselves. Even after Amber has left, the family's story stays interesting.

The problem with this "instant" character is that, while she does a good job making you interested in the family, her own story isn't strong enough to make you care about her. Thankfully, not a lot of the book is told from her point-of-view (thought the parts that are, are written in such an artsy abstract way that makes you care even less about her). Smith successfully avoids allowing her novel's added conflict to take over the story, but in doing so she fails to give this character any story at all.

That's the only place I saw Smith's storytelling falter, and in the end it's her strong writing that overcomes the weakness of the novel's (supposed) central character. Once you see that Amber's just an additive to make the plot rise a little faster, you start to appreciate that it's the family member's stories that are the real main ingredients of the book. ( )

This was the most important book I read in 2006. ( )

Do you ever wonder why certain books are so highly rated by the critics? This is one of those books for me. I found the style irritating, and the story boring. I sometimes felt that the author was just trying to show the reader how clever and original she was. This really didn't work for me - shame, because I had really high hopes for it. ( )

the quote from this book, "everyone is broken" pretty much sums it up to me. a family is affected by a young woman who comes to live with them temporarily. Even though i was a little confused by the ending of the book, smith has a beautiful way of putting words and images together and this book was well worth reading! ( )