Accident - Danielle Steel

...and return unread. I considered Accident by Danielle Steel. I have read several of her books before. Some have been really good (Mirror Image, for example) but others have been awful (Summer’s End), so I doubted I would be missing anything special.

Just to check out my suspicions, I began to read a couple of pages. Before long, I realised I had read over a hundred pages – almost a third of the whole novel! So I persevered ...
...them. The events surrounding the accident are well described – not too vividly for those with weak stomachs – and you become enthralled, eager to know what’s going to happen.

Unfortunately, after all the excitement of the first third, the novel slows down and ends up becoming dull and predictable. The arrival of Page’s mother and sister seems to be nothing but a bit of padding and an excuse to throw another ... more

Over the last few months, I have been noting down the titles and authors of any books that sound interesting, after reading reviews of them on Ciao and Dooyoo. This now means I have a pile of some twenty or so books borrowed from the library and friends, that I want to read.

So the other night, I was flicking through some, to see if there were any I could happily drop and return unread. I considered Accident by Danielle Steel. I have read several of her books before. Some have been really good (Mirror Image, for example) but others have been awful (Summer’s End), so I doubted I would be missing anything special.

Just to check out my suspicions, I began to read a couple of pages. Before long, I realised I had read over a hundred pages – almost a third of the whole novel! So I persevered and finally finished it today. So what did I think to it?

THE PLOT

Page and Brad are an apparently happily married couple. They live in San Francisco with their two children – Andy (7) and Allyson (15). Their life seems beautiful, even idyllic. Then one night, their daughter tells them she’s going out for dinner with her best friend Chloe and her father Trygve.

As the evening wears on, Page feels secure in knowing her family are all safe. When she hears on the news that there has been a bad car crash on Golden Gate Bridge, she is secure in the knowledge that none of her family is involved. But as Allyson’s curfew passes without a sign from her daughter, Page begins to worry.

For instead of the girls going out with Trygve, they actually met up with two boys – Phillip and Jamie – and went out on a date. A head-on collision with a car driven by a senator’s wife leaves one dead, two seriously injured and changes the lives of the families involved forever.

The novel examines the changes this event brings to everyone involved and the knock on effects it has on destroying and rebuilding everything around them. What secret does Brad harbour? What happened in Page’s childhood? Will Trygve ever find love again, after his marriage fell apart and he has been a single parent?

MY OPINION

As I mentioned earlier, the first part of the novel is compelling. You get to empathise with the characters and care about what happens to them. The events surrounding the accident are well described – not too vividly for those with weak stomachs – and you become enthralled, eager to know what’s going to happen.

Unfortunately, after all the excitement of the first third, the novel slows down and ends up becoming dull and predictable. The arrival of Page’s mother and sister seems to be nothing but a bit of padding and an excuse to throw another semi-controversial element into the dying plot.

Brad is turned from an interesting and kindly man to a weak one, while Page becomes irritating after a while. Her apparent perfection grates on the reader and at times, you just want to shake her. While portrayed as a strong and capable woman for most of the novel, her indecisiveness and her often wet reactions to Brad make her incredibly tiresome.

Trygve is probably the most interesting character in the book, although he too becomes just too perfect to be real. It also annoyed me that I had no idea how to pronounce his Scandinavian name! (Try-greeve? Trig-vay?) The last third of the novel became so sickeningly cutesy that I had to make sure I didn’t combine it with meal times, to guarantee I escaped the nausea.

The children are described well enough and are fairly realistic, but they also end up getting the sugar-coated treatment by the end of it. Seven year old Andy was especially annoying. I mean, how many kids that age do you know who only have one tantrum in four months? But perfect Andy is loved and cherished and cuddled and loved again – and don’t we know it?! His cherubic little red cheeks and golden halo jump out of the book waiting for admiration.

It also surprised me how conflicting Danielle Steel’s moral views seemed to be. For a large proportion of the novel, she comes over as very conservative, rather religious and all the characters are seriously thinking of the sanctity of marriage. Then all of a sudden, everyone is happily excepting the adultery going on, with all the children far more accepting of it than they would be in reality. I mean, I’m no conservative myself (little or big ‘C’), but Steel’s slant here seemed askew.

Overall, it was disappointing. What began as an interesting plotline and compellingly written deteriorated into just another romantic novel. It had its moments and I finished reading it, but it left a bitter taste in my mouth. It could have been so much more, but it felt as if she changed tack halfway through writing it or her editor was pressing her to finish to a deadline. Either way, I really wouldn’t bother. You won’t have missed much.

This is one accident I recommend you avert your eyes from.

ACCIDENT by Danielle Steel
Published 1994
Hardback, £14.99
ISBN 0-593-02257-2
 

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