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The Accidentals
The Accidentals: A Novel | Minrose Gwin
10 posts | 9 read | 3 to read
Following the death of their mother from a botched backwoods abortion, the McAlister daughters have to cope with the ripple effect of this tragedy as they come of age in 1950s Mississippi and then grow up to face their own impossible choicesan unforgettable, beautiful novel that is threaded throughout with the stories of mothers and daughters in pre-Roe versus Wade America. Life heads down back alleys, takes sharp left turns. Then, one fine day it jumps the track and crashes. In the fall of 1957, Olivia McAlister is living in Opelika, Mississippi, caring for her two girls, June and Grace, and her husband, Holly. She dreams of living a much larger life--seeing the world and returning to her wartime job at a landing boat factory in New Orleans. As she watches over the birds in her yard, Olivia feels like an accidentala migratory bird blown off course. When Olivia becomes pregnant again, she makes a fateful decision, compelling Grace, June, and Holly to cope in different ways. While their father digs up the backyard to build a bomb shelter, desperate to protect his family, Olivias spinster sister tries to take them all under her wing. But the impact of Olivias decision reverberates throughout Graces and Junes lives. Grace, caught up in an unconventional love affair, becomes one of the girls who went away to have a baby in secret. June, guilt-ridden for her part in exposing Graces pregnancy, eventually makes an unhappy marriage. Meanwhile Ed Mae Johnson, an African-American care worker in a New Orleans orphanage, is drastically impacted by Graces choices. As the years go by, their lives intersect in ways that reflect the unpredictable nature of bird flight that lands in accidental locationsand the consolations of imperfect return. Filled with tragedy, humor, joy, and the indomitable strength of women facing the constricted spaces of the 1950s and 60s, The Accidentals is a poignant, timely novel that reminds us of the hope and consolation that can be found in unexpected landings.
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MrsBibliophile
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Panpan

I'm in a book rut! This book was terribly depressing with little to no point. I'm not even sure who to recommend this book to because it seemed like such a Debbie Downer.

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Cosmos_Moon
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This was a sad story about the life of two sisters, a lost mother, a lost child and different types of love woven through many lives. @ShyBookOwl #bookhunt

ShyBookOwl Sounds good! 4y
6 likes1 comment
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Cosmos_Moon
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Pickpick

Lovely sad story of how sisters share a life filled with loss and hardships, and their love for each other. Focused mostly around Jane and Grace, and three unwanted pregnancies, twisting through time and parallels from the eyes of several characters. Loved it!

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BookNAround
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Mehso-so

A family broken by a tragedy that changes the trajectory of their lives this story of motherless daughters covers a lot of territory and wraps up too neatly and out of character. Even so, the writing is beautiful. Full review at https://booknaround.blogspot.com/2019/08/review-accidentals-by-minrose-gwin.html

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JenlovesJT47
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Mehso-so

This started out good, but the last 150 pages seemed to drag on forever. It‘s somewhere between a pick and a so-so for me. 3⭐️

Avanders Hiya lady — just checking in on your #cozyswap package .. less than a week to open date! 👏🏽👏🏽 Have you sent yours? (Sorry if I missed it!) 🎃♥️ 5y
JenlovesJT47 @Avanders don‘t hate me! It‘s going in the mail today. I‘ll post a pic in a bit. Sorry for the delay! And I got my package yesterday. Will post a pic soon. So hard to do everything with one hand! 🥺🙃 5y
Avanders Oh man I bet!! Life doesn‘t seem to always *agree* with our plans... 😜 No worries about it going today — glad you got yours too!! 🎃♥️🎃♥️ 5y
JenlovesJT47 @Avanders change of plans! Putting some last minute stuff in the box tonight and sending it priority mail in the morning! 🙃😘 5y
Avanders 😘🎃♥️ 5y
68 likes5 comments
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intothehallofbooks
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Pickpick

Ms Gwin is a wonderful storyteller; reading her stories reminds me of the beauty of language. Her characterization is fantastic. This is told with multiple POVs, including regular, everyday people that cross paths with Grace and June.

I‘m not sure that I liked this one quite as much as her previous book, Promise. These characters had tragedy after tragedy, and I still feel the weight of all that went wrong for them even after I finished the book.

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bookishkai
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I‘m book hopping again, can‘t quite settle into anything even though I‘ve got plenty started. I think I‘m looking for something to fill the void left by The Flight Portfolio. So I guess I‘ll try this one. The subject is interesting, it‘s all kinds of stuff that seems like a good book, let‘s see if I can stick with it.

34 likes1 stack add
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Pelican71
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Author signing & reading at Pass Books in Pass Christian, MS

38 likes2 stack adds
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DebinHawaii
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Today‘s no-cook, cold & vegan is this “Best Gazpacho” — a Seville-style gazpacho, rich & delicious. It‘s way too humid to cook today—this soup just required some chopping, blending & chilling. It was lunch with a few chapters of this #ARC I am reviewing later this week.
Link to #soupersundays blog post with recipe is👇🏻

Tamra 😋 5y
cariashley The NYT recipe is my absolute favorite! Closest I‘ve had to the real thing from Seville. 😋 5y
BarbaraBB Your lunch sounds so good. I wish I could cook that good for myself as you do! 5y
92 likes1 stack add4 comments
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BookNAround
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We got home late last night after 15 hours of driving. Things I should do now that I‘m home: find the terrible smelling thing in the fridge, wash the moldy dishes (apparently my husband and two oldest children are all incapable of running a dishwasher), wipe grotty counters, unpack car, return entire contents of my closet to said closet from the front room (closet collapsed right before I left), etc. What I‘m actually going to do: read this.

Tamra Better plan. 5y
Jas16 I support that decision 5y
kspenmoll Good for you! 5y
73 likes3 comments