The Almost Moon: A Novel
by Alice Sebold
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Book Reviews of The Almost Moon: A Novel
Book Review: Frustrating and disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
The novel was dark and creepy. I could almost feel the protaganist's mind unhinging as she slipped over the brink from hating the constraints of her life trapped as a caregiver to an elderly, mentally ill mother to actually doing something about it.
The story could have been a great thriller, a real look inside of the mind not of the stereotypical killer, but of a woman slowly pushed to the breaking point via years of not having needs met.
What was maddening is that it meandered along with many accomplices and betrayals along the way that were just not believeable. That Helen did not feel any trepidation about hanging around with her mother's newly killed corpse and giving it a bath before dragging it around the house was a clever way of telling the reader that yep, Helen had indeed lost her mind. That Helen's former husband demonstrated equal ease in hanging out in an empty house with his newly-killed ex-mother-in-law took the his character from plausible to just convenient. Nobody in this book seemed to find spending time with the recently killed to be remotely disturbing. Yuck.
Still, I slogged through, finding out more and more eerie, creepy things about the main character's family. The reason I toughed it out was because there was one main question threading through the entire novel...would Helen be found out as the murderer, or would she go free?
In the end, the reader is not given any satisfaction, any closure at all, about this question. It was that moment that made me want to throw the book across the room...I felt the reader had been had, had been duped into searching for an answer that would not be provided. For the disturbing images and implausible situations we were forced to endure, we deserve a decent ending.
Book Review: Pigeonholed
Summary: 4 Stars
Alice Sebold has written something very different from her previous, highly successful works. Not only is the flavor of 'The Almost Moon' unexpected, but the subject matter makes us terribly squeamish. We're comfortable when mental illness afflicts an enemy 'other,' as in a crime or mystery novel. We are not comfortable when it afflicts the protagonist, with whom we can identify. We do not want to see it from the inside. We'd rather it was locked in the shed out back, or in a rundown, nameless institution well outside of town. Helen, we realize instantly, is not of sound mind. Through the course of the story we see and feel the innumerable injuries that made her what she is. We've all felt the pain Helen describes, but very, very few have been subjected to it to the overwhelming degree she's experienced. Slowly we also realize that none of the characters is entirely sound, they've all been dented and bent in various ways. Perhaps Sebold is pointing out that mental illness is highly variable in its nature, severity, and in the ability of sufferers to mask and cope with it, that it is more universal than we'd like to think. Helen and her family strove to hide their issues as best as possible so as to appear 'normal.' Their 'normal' neighbors, on the other hand, were just as capable of irrational, dangerous behavior, as evidenced by the mob that held Claire rather than the hit-and-run driver responsible for the neighbor boy's death.
Rape, a topic in Sebold's "Lovely Bones" and "Lucky" has finally been generally recognized as a crime. Further, it is generally recognized now that it is not the fault of the victim. However, as we can see in "The Almost Moon," and in our reactions to it, we have not made the same progress with mental illness.
Book Review: what a depressing book
Summary: 2 Stars
having deeply enjoyed this author's book the lovely bones, i was looking forward to diving into this book. and, while i did finish the book, and did find things about it that were worthwhile, i had a hard time. it's just such a completely depressing story! holy cow.
it's interesting: i read this book just after finishing howard dully's non-fiction autobiography, my lobotomy. both stories (this one fiction) involve a horrible, over-bearing, critical, inescapable mother or stepmother. sure made me appreciate my own mom!
the almost moon's narrator is a middle aged divorcee, who makes her living as a still life model for the art department of a local university. she's hopelessly enmeshed with an agoraphobic, appearances-are-everything, walking paradox of a mother. with her mother seriously ailing, the narrator kills her in the opening chapter of the book. the rest of the book flashes back to various points in life, as well as playing out the subsequent 24 hours following the murder. it's a mercy-killing of sorts, but it's also murder with cause.
and, this is where i can see that -- while i didn't really enjoy the book -- it's a good piece of writing. sebold creates tension and paradox on so many levels in this book. the narrator both loves and hates her mother - this is clear. the murder seems both. the murder also seems moral and completely immoral, at the same time. these paradoxes flood the entire story, in a way that is compelling, but certainly not uplifting.
it's not that i'm all that into happy-shiny books. but this one left me with almost nothing more than the thought that sebold is a good writer. i will say this: it might make a much more interesting movie than a book.
Book Review: This Book is Greatly Misunderstood
Summary: 4 Stars
It is fine to not like a book and to say so, but the reasons many of these negative reviews are giving seem very confused. What I believe has happened here is that Alice Sebold is a very dark writer who takes on subject matters that most authors don't and somehow she fell into great success with the Lovely Bones, which is wonderful. The problem is Alice Sebold isn't a typical best-selling author and by that I mean she isn't a sell out. She doesn't write books to please the masses and that is very clear from this second novel.
The Almost Moon is not a book that's going to appeal to a mass audience, mostly because mass audiences want an "enjoyable" book that has a clear-cut ending and may have dark moments but leaves you with a sense of hope. The Almost Moon is none of these things. But does that make it a bad book? I'd like to argue no.
This book is compelling and strange and never lets you off the hook for a second. It challenges your thinking, your own relationships, and that thin line between normal behavior and the grotesque. This may not be "enjoyable" but it is powerful and worthy of anyone's time. I like dark books that go against the grain. The majority of books being written today are sloppy, commercial crap and this is not.
As for those who hated the ending I challenge you to re-think the book. The point is not to have a wrapped up story. The point is to explore the immediate aftermath (24 hours) of a horrible event in someone's life. It ends right where it should. This isn't some murder mystery crime novel that's going to tie everything into a little package like an episode of Law and Order. It's more complex than that.
I challenge people to take on this book and to see it for it is.
Book Review: Is Almost Good
Summary: 2 Stars
The best part of reading Sebold is the interesting, quirky way she approaches serious topics. She pushes her themes of madness and murder to the edge of the horror genre. Although the writer doesn't crossover to a true vampire tale, I almost wish she had. Instead, we get a life-sucking mother and the psychologically-bitten daughter. Both of whom are, not far into the book, unlikeable characters and impossible for me to connect with. The story has a promising start with Helen Knightly stating in the opening line that she's committed the most ignoble crime, matricide. The writer is masterful in capturing a tortured childhood ruled by mental illness - that of both the obviously sick mother and seemingly enabler father. You don't have to like the child or the adult she has become to appreciate how the child Helen tones survival skills to negotiate her place in the family. Although she is born late into her parents' marriage, she is not the adored only child one would expect to meet; she's the interloper between two people who would have done best if left to dance together alone. Yet, the good stuff about the book doesn't save it. The beautifully writ language notwithstanding, the characters fail to ring completely true. The characters and the plot hang, never becoming entirely believable as either the monsters of fantasy or in reality one's own declining parent or odd next-door neighbor. Two scenes are especially abhorrent: Helen's trophy-taking in serial-killer fashion and the mob of neighbors bent on hurting the mother and attacking the girl in her stead. This is a dark, disturbing story with an unfinished ending. It failed to illuminate the generational destruction of untreated mental illness. That's another crime.