Tuesday, February 23, 2010

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
Fiction


All her life, Helen's life has been affected by her mom. Helen always knew her mom was different from others, but only when her mom watched a boy die on their street after being hit by a car without rushing to help did Helen realize why. Her mom has an undiagnosed mental illness. This illness caused her mom to stay inside for years at a time, causing Helen to grow up much faster than she should have and putting tremendous stress on her father.

The book starts with Helen killing her mother and what happens in the next 24 hours as she remembers her relationship with her mom, kids, ex-husband, best friend, and neighbours. For an author that has written characters that are extremely easy to connect with, that certainly wasn't the case with The Almost Moon. I didn't even understand where the characters were coming from until half way through the book, let alone EVER connect with them. Parts of the book are cringe-worthy in how unhealthy some of the relationships were.

To be honest, I can't say I fully understood this book. Perhaps the characters were too deep and the relationship too intense for me. I can understand why some people may like this book, but it just wasn't to my tastes.


First Line: "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily."


Rating:

(2.5/5)

2 comments:

Kathleen said...

I still haven't read The Lovely Bones although I have read Lucky. I find it hard to keep up with authors as there are so many other books I want to read too!

Jen (momx3lovesbooks) said...

I've read all the other Sebold books and this one was my favorite. I felt completely against the norm and couldn't stand The Lovely Bones.