Accidental by Alex Richards

Reviewed by Natalie M.
Grade 9

Have you ever made a mistake that you find difficult to forgive yourself for? Are you up to date on the gun violence issues in America? Have you experienced a period of time where your mental health just isn’t where it should be? These are all things Johanna Carlson must deal with in this heart-wrenching, and strong-willed novel Accidental by Alex Richards (coming soon to WPPL!). This book will take you on a roller coaster of emotions and make you really feel for the characters.

Johanna Carlson is a 16-year-old girl in Nevada who has lived with her grandparents ever since her mom died in a car accident when she was two. She enjoys hanging with her two best friends, Leah and Gabby, sewing clothing and listening to old music. Her life is very normal. It was, that is, until her father who she hasn’t seen in over 13 years and she doesn’t even really remember, suddenly makes contact with her. During only their second meeting, he drops a bombshell on her that she could have never prepared for. He reveals that her mother had in fact not been in a car accident, but she had been shot by two-year-old Johanna. Upon learning this information, Johanna’s life is turned upside down as she has to learn to live with herself after what she has done.

The plot of the book rotated between heavy, awkward, and intriguing for a majority of the time with some light humor and jokes sprinkled in. The heaviness is present in a lot of the book as Johanna deals with the fact that she killed her mother and that no one really knows how she feels. You have to read through her panic attacks, which the author describes amazingly, and Johanna having difficulty forgiving herself. It can be awkward when she is yelling at someone or at one point when she gets a little tipsy and starts talking to strangers about how she shot her mom. It gets intriguing when she starts talking to a new boy she has met at school and when she confronts her grandparents with questions about her mother, who they refuse to speak about. There are also light little jokes sprinkled throughout the novel, and nice moments where Johanna and her friends are just being regular high schoolers. Overall, I enjoyed the plot besides a few awkward encounters. I thought it was well written and that the side characters were very relatable.

Overall I give this book a four out five stars, and would definitely recommend it to a friend. I really enjoyed how relatable Johanna’s friends are, because they have difficulty being able to cheer her up and don’t always know what to say. It loses a point due to the fact that I found Johanna very annoying at some points. I understand that she was going through a lot, but she unfairly took her anger out on a lot of people who did not deserve it. However I still think this book is a great read, and also it brings awareness to the gun violence issues in America.