An Accident of Stars

An Accident of Stars, Foz Meadows, 496 pages

Sixteen-year-old Saffron is just a normal high school student, dealing with creepy boys and an uncaring faculty. But when she accidentally follows middle-aged Gwen through a rip in the world behind her school, she stumbles into a strange, overwhelming new world, and is immediately thrust into the middle of a civil war. As a new worldwalker, Saffron must deal with the pain of leaving her family and everything she knew behind, as well as the unexpected, awful trauma dealt by Gwen’s opponent.

It’s hard for me to get more into the plot, because there’s a lot going on – lots of POV characters, lots of backstory and history, a rich and only-lightly-explored magic system. The civil war plot is, by any stretch of the means, Gwen’s story, not Saffron’s. Her error put a tyrant on the throne, and she must bring him down. But Saffron as our protagonist and audience surrogate allows us to enter the action in media res, learning what is important as it comes up and never being given too much information at one time.

I feel like this is an unsatisfactory review, but again, there’s so much in this book that I don’t know what to focus on. Regardless, I really enjoyed it – I thought the worldbuilding was complex and fascinating, the plot was engrossing, and above all, Meadows’s handling of the immense stress and trauma placed upon the characters (and Saffron in particular) was masterful and above all kind. There are some lovely, gentle sentiments expressed in elegant, simple language, and I appreciate the care that went into it. I would definitely recommend this book.