Accidental Happiness by Meredith Rachek: A Review

I received a copy of this book for an honest review. Opinions are 100% my own.

Well fellow book lovers, it's been far too long since I've written one of these. I have to admit. The middle of 2015 was not good for reading. Since early summer, I really struggled finding time to relax and get a few pages in. However, this fall I'm finally starting to catch up and force myself to put the tech down and read a bit before bed and it's really paying off. One of the books I recently finished was Accidental Happiness by Meredith Rachek. It was an emotional roller coaster but a really great story. See my thoughts after the Goodreads description.

Image via Goodreads

What Goodreads Says:
What if your life changed overnight?

For Brian and Becky, the late hours of an early August night young love was irrevocably transformed into tragedy. In a story that declares the strength and resilience of those on the cusp of adulthood and represents all that young love can be; Accidental Happiness takes its reader on an emotional journey which explores every facet of love and loss.

The start of Brian’s senior year meant life was just as it should be for an eighteen year old about to realize his dreams. Yet only moments into his first soccer practice, despite barely catching a glimpse of the girl running through his peripheral, his world as he knew it stopped. What he never expected was for a new student to change his outlook on commitment, family, and finding the strength to fight for what you want from the people around you. His story progresses through the next nine months as he falls in love, questions the power of that love, falls out of faith with the meaning of family, and is ultimately forced to identify what he truly wants and needs in life, even if that is at the expense of losing those who mean the most to him, possibly forever.

Becky’s past year in Memphis was a roller coaster ride she had no recollection of boarding but never regretted living. Now on the brink of a college soccer career at her dream school, hundreds of miles away from family and the love of her life, freedom feels empowering. That is until the night her world gets ripped from her side. Waking up in the hospital the following day to find out Brian didn’t survive the accident; Becky is forced to pick up the pieces of life despite wanting to escape everything that meant something in her relationship. Throwing herself into a sport that has always provided a release, life’s circumstances soon make it impossible for her to even carry on with that last piece of herself. Over the course of her freshman year Becky finds that despite her loss, the issues which haunted Brian during their relationship did not die with him that night. Beaten down over and over again as she attempts to heal the heart broken on that dark night when two young people felt they could take on the world as long as they had each other by their side; Becky now has the ultimate questions to answer. Can anything be forgiven through love? How do you carry on when your foundation is continuously knocking you off your feet? What if it was all a lie?

What I Say: 
I was torn through most of it about how I felt towards Becky and Brian. I am not a hopeless romantic by any means so their intense love was a little far-fetched for me. What I found compelling though was their growth. Nothing beats an intense character arc and both of them had pretty significant changes from beginning to end. Sadly, for Becky the death of Brian was a huge proponent of hers but it all was for the best in the end. Regardless of how you feel about the strength of their love and relationship, you cannot help but admire the changes they inspired in each other and I loved following along on that journey.

I will admit, as much as Accidental Happiness is a great read it can get heavy at times. There are a lot of things that Becky deals with in the event of Brian's death and there are a lot of things you learn about Brian's life that make you feel angry and extreme disappointment in certain characters. However, I will say that the end is incredibly uplifting. I can't go into detail because it will give too much away but all the sadness, anger and disappointment you experience on behalf of several characters is all worth it in the end. I would highly recommend this book by Meredith Rachek. It's really a fantastic read.