The Almost Moon: A Novel
by Alice Sebold
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Book Reviews of The Almost Moon: A Novel
Book Review: It's a cross between Lucky and Th Lovely Bones...
Summary: 3 Stars
The novel's mood is predominantly dark, but it's got its light feelings here and there. As the child of Sebold, with ancestries linking from Lucky, a very dark, very frank, very brutal memoir about rape, and The Lovely Bones, a lighter tale on a similar topic: the rape/murder of a young girl and the impact it has on those who knew her - it's not surprising that this novel came out the way it did. I like to think of Sebold as an "deep, dark issues" sort of writer with a mother complex. If you compare her use of mothers in her previous works, it wouldn't shock a reader when they read Almost Moon.
Almost Moon is confusing, and sometimes a little annoying. By the time you're almost done with it, you're in a race to finish it, find the ending, and be done with it. It hurts, and it makes you angry, and it reminds you of your own relationship with your parents - and your childhood, which a lot of people might want to forget... at least the bad stuff. Almost Moon surfaces that stuff up, and I think that's why a majority of people looking for an instant Sebold classic will be disappointed in this novel: the ending is ambiguous, just like the motives of the daughter who kills her mother. We're not sure what exactly happens and we're left to our own devices. I hate it when an author does that, but maybe it keeps the spirit of imagination alive - and keeps us talking about the book.
I felt really bad for the main character. She was so messed up from her childhood with her mother that it warped her sense of justice entirely. She couldn't move on from Point A to Point B like any other person would. So there's plenty of pity and almost dislike for her.
I would suggest you buy it used, or check it out from a library like I did. I don't think I would've been satisfied paying money for this. But it doesn't turn me off Sebold. If she came out with another book, I'd read it. She's like the Ice Cream Man: Many flavors, all are delicious - some to everyone, many to specific individuals, and a few to those unique tastebuds that can handle the explosion of bitterness. Who knows... maybe that next book of hers is my flavor!
Book Review: Blows The Lovely Bones out of the water!
Summary: 5 Stars
Alice Sebold is dark. Her first wildly bestselling novel dealt with the murder of a child. This novel deals with matricide. It's laid out plainly in the opening line, "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily." Me, personally, I've never thought about murdering my mother. And yet, I totally understood how this previously law-abiding citizen wound up in the situation she was in. Sebold had me with her every step of the way.
The entire novel actually takes place in just about 24 hours. Forty-nine-year-old Helen is paying a visit to her difficult and declining 88-year-old mother Claire. In a moment of weakness (Or is it mercy?) Helen snaps. She suffocates her mother. This is horrible, but I believe most readers will understand why it happened. Helen had been a virtual slave to her mother for years. Their love/hate relationship is as complex as they come. Although the events of the novel unfold in the course of a day, through flashbacks and memories we really get the story of Helen's relationship with both of her parents as well as her ex-husband, friends, and now adult daughters. Helen is a product of her upbringing. She's become what she had to become. So, when she snaps and kills her mother, I understood it.
But from that one pivotal event, she does everything wrong. She compounds her mistake in truly horrible ways. It is the ultimate downward spiral, and watching it is like watching a train wreck--you can't look away. And I couldn't stop turning pages fast enough. You know it will end badly as she pulls others into her nightmare, but you just have to see how it ends. Now I know, and I find it a bit haunting.
This is that rare and most wonderful of things, a literary page-turner. The writing is fantastic and the plot compulsive. I saw Sebold speak to a room full of booksellers in June. She said, "This is what you're all wanting to know: Does the follow-up to The Lovely Bones suck?" Let me tell you, it does not suck. Sebold's sophomore effort is a triumph. Read it.
Book Review: Well, *I* liked it!
Summary: 5 Stars
Alice Sebold's The Almost Moon starts with a murder, a clumsy, unpremeditated affair that happens almost naturally. It was easy, Helen Knightly tells us in the book's first sentence:
"When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily."
It's a sentence that makes you want to read more. The book continues:
"Dementia, as it descends, has a way of revealing the core of the person affected by it. My mother's core was rotten like the brackish water at the bottom of a weeks-old vase of flowers. She had been beautiful when my father met her and still capable of love when I became their late-in-life child, but by the time she gazed up at me that day, none of this mattered."
One paragraph in and it's clear that you're in for something special.
What follows that delicious opening is the story of how Helen came to kill her mother--the toll that Claire's mental illness took on the family over decades, its unexpected consequences, the mental abuse, the exhausting intensity of Helen's love-hate relationship with her mother. This back story is interspersed with the continuing story of what's going on in the present: what Helen does immediately after the murder (whatever you're thinking, you're wrong), the eventual discovery of the body by outsiders.
That Helen commits murder so clumsily, with only the most amateurish attempt made to cover it up, is a great strength of the book, I think. This is the sort of mess that a real person might make of matricide. And while Helen's behavior after the fact seems bizarre, that too lends the story credence. Who in such circumstances would be fully sane?
While The Almost Moon is not a suspense novel per se, it is certainly suspenseful. What will become of Helen, given the murder investigation and her own feelings of...not quite remorse, is never clear, not until the book's last page. And when it comes the ending is, really, just right. This one's highly recommended.
-- Debra Hamel
Book Review: An honest novel
Summary: 5 Stars
I just finished reading "The Almost Moon" and have been reading the reviews this book has gotten since its release. I disagree with all the negative remarks. It is my assumption that those who have given this novel a negative review have never been honest with themselves.
I do not connect with many authors but I connect with her. Alice Sebold is one that writes from a place of true dysfunction with honest, detailed accounts. If you are uncomfortable with her voice either you have never been hurt deeply to your core or [as we in the past have been taught to do] brush your experiences under the rug as if nothing ever happened.
I applaud her for outing the truth about dysfunction. She speaks from a place where personal torment is normal and niceties are not. When you grow up in dysfunction it isn't dysfunction to you; it is how the world is because you know nothing else. This book is a very good representation of what life is like for MANY people and should not be dismissed.
She has been able to articulate a mindset that often many cannot grasp because it is unspoken. That is one of the underlying themes in the novel; secrets are kept and held for no great reason and turn into tragedies because of no communication about what is really happening. There is no communication because they were never taught how. When you've learned to hide your secrets it is a tough tide to fight against when you want to change.
I guess I am having trouble articulating in direct words what I saw in the book because it is so powerful and thorough. Ms. Sebold did it best through her characters. It never hurts to broaden one's perspectives no matter how uncomfortable it may make you.
If you hated this novel, I suggest you need to re-read it through someone else's perspective. Pick a family member or a friend who might seem distant and keeps you at arms length. You might "see" them, gain a glimpse of understanding about them, maybe even help them.
Book Review: Not for me...
Summary: 2 Stars
Helen Knightly is a middle-aged woman who has endured the manipulations and pain caused by her mother Clair, who is now eighty-eight years old and needs to be cared for in every way. Through a series of flashbacks, we are shown just how Helen's mother has sucked the very life out of her daughter. Now that Clair has to be cared for hand and foot, Helen asks herself: is she willing to give away more of her life to her mother? The answer is a big no. So she does what she feels is the best thing to do, she smothers her mother to death. The woman is miserable and in the brink of death anyway -- why not rush the process and put an end to both their miseries? Through a dark, disturbing, yet unfulfilling narrative, we see Helen's descent, as she does some unspeakable things, asking herself if she is as insane as her mother once was.
The Almost Moon is a very dark novel. Alice Sebold created a thought provoking and wonderful story with The Lovely Bones, which is why I had looked forward to reading this book. I love dark and disturbing novels that leave me thinking long after I've read them. Unfortunately, this isn't one of them. This is a little too tedious for me. It was a chore to read, and there is more telling than showing throughout the whole thing. The weaving of past and present is well done and I was never confused, and the way Sebold wraps it all up is rather convincing as well as disarming, but I had to force myself to care about both the story and the main character. I have no problems with flawed and unlikable protagonists, but Helen never drew me in. I was never able to get into her skin and imagine her world, simply because I couldn't care less. And shouldn't you care about the main character, warts and all? The Almost Moon is a two-star read at best. This is a weak follow-up to The Lovely Bones. The whole "sophomore slump" thing definitely applies to this author. However, it is up to you, the reader, to decide whether this novel is a hit or a miss.