Customer Reviews

Accidental Woman

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A slight but charming novel of ideas, wise and tender, by turns unbearably sad, enviably clever and roar out loud funny, 'The Accidental Woman' is a series of vignettes from the almost tragic life of Maria, an intelligent and lovely young woman who has never been sure what she wanted and to whom as a consequence things just happen at random. This being the case, it isn't as exquisitely structured as his later work. The auctorial voice is playful, if compassionate, and scenes range from savagely farcical to gently satirical to a sort of heightened realism. Coe fans will enjoy it as long as you aren't expecting What A Carve Up or House of Sleep; anyone who hasn't read him should start with them.

This novel reads like a bad 10th grade composition! The awkward writing, a plot made up of unrelated circumstances, and a unsympathetic central character combine to make a very boring reading experience.

After reading the excellent "House of Sleep" and "What a Carve Up", this came as a big disappointment, although with a few mitigating good features. The basic problem of this book is that its central characters are uninteresting and the plot (such as it is) unabsorbing. The "short stories within a book" at its core are an interesting idea but somehow never quite work properly. At some points it threatens to really take off, with some good secondary characters and scenes (particularly between academics and lawyers)and there are some memorable flashes of humour, but overall it is very unsatisying

Coe's first and least novel. Pants to be honest. Some humour, particularly at the expense of the novel as an art form, and readable as always, but it is all very insubstantial and lazy. Can't abide laziness.