The Almost Moon: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Alice Sebold
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
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Rating:  166 reviews
Sales Rank: 17118
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.2
ISBN: 0316677469
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780316677462
ASIN: 0316677469
Publication Date: October 16, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new and gift quality. In stock and available for immediate shipping.
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Product Description
A woman steps over the line into the unthinkable in this brilliant, powerful, and unforgettable new novel by the author of The Lovely Bones and Lucky.
For years Helen Knightly has given her life to others: to her haunted mother, to her enigmatic father, to her husband and now grown children. When she finally crosses a terrible boundary, her life comes rushing in at her in a way she never could have imagined. Unfolding over the next twenty-four hours, this searing, fast-paced novel explores the complex ties between mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, the meaning of devotion, and the line between love and hate. It is a challenging, moving, gripping story, written with the fluidity and strength of voice that only Alice Sebold can bring to the page.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 161 more reviews...
 The Almost Book August 20, 2008
I read this book because I enjoyed The Lovely Bones so much. I was curious. I'd heard bad reviews and yet I thought I should give it a try anyway. I didn't like Lucky as much as I liked The Lovely Bones, by the way. I thought that Alice Sebold was brave to tell her story, and she clearly has talent as a writer, but I just felt like her memoir was all over the place. I got the impression she was trying to convey to the reader who she was before the rape, and as a result, she ended up writing about lots of, what I felt were, irrelevant details. The same problem is evident with The Almost Moon.
Well, let me start off by saying The Almost Moon was not a pleasant novel to read at all. I couldn't even finish the book. I only got about 200 pages in and even that was 200 pages too much. I usually give a book 50 or so pages to get me invested in the story and the characters. I gave this book more of a chance. Morbid curiosity, I guess.
Why didn't I like it? It's not the subject matter that I find most repellent, though the subject matter is pretty abysmal. The book is just not very well written. The plotline could have worked if Sebold had been able to pull off a story that spans so little time without veering off into so many non-sequiturs. But no. She complicates the story more than she needed to through endless backstory. It's essentially 290 pages of the protagonist moving her mother's body and trying to cover her tracks. Oh, yeah, and sleeping with her friend's grown son. The reason it's so long is because of all the flashbacks. Most of the book takes place in the past as Helen reflects on all the little things that have happened over the course of her 49 years. I have yet to figure out the significance of a majority of them. Sebold doesn't even try to explain why we're going back into the past. She just transports us there and expects us to connect the dots. But do the dots lead us anywhere or are we just meant to come away more confused than we were before we started reading? I don't know. That was my main problem with this novel. I mean, come on, you have to have a plot. You can't just write 290 pages of, "I remember this time" and "I remember that time" and expect the reader to follow along.
Furthermore, there's no real character you can get invested in. I understand the mother has mental issues and so I feel for her, but she's pretty much just there, causing trouble for people. I'm sure that this is what it feels like her main purpose is to those who love her, but a book has just got to make us at least care that she's dead. She's a human being, after all.
As for the daughter, I understand she had a very complicated relationship with her mother, but she's just so...I don't know. I don't feel like she cares much about anything---at least she doesn't seem to care about anything by page 200, so I imagine she'll probably remain like this for the remaining 90 or so pages. Yeah, she does have feelings and all, but I just don't feel like she cares about anything half as much as she should. Which is probably why the flashbacks occur in the book. It reveals important info about her, that's true. But the flashbacks are just so confusing that I pretty much dismiss them upon reading them.
The grown son whom Helen sleeps with is a cliche. He's got no personality. Helen's ex-husband is interesting, but only because his actions just make you go, "Huh?" I don't know if Helen's two daughters serve any purpose in the story except to show how dysfunctional this family really is.
I get the feeling that Alice Sebold wanted to write about what life is like for those dealing with a mentally ill parent. The thing is, a book still needs to be interesting, even when dealing with a storyline about suffocation and madness. The narrative shouldn't be suffocating and maddening just because the characters are that way to each other.
Alice Sebold is a very talented writer, no doubt. I think her problem lies in structure, mainly. Despite all I've said about the characters, I think it mainly comes down to structure for her. If the structure hadn't been so confusing, I might have gotten more invested in the characters. As it was, I didn't even have a chance to care about them because I was too busy trying to figure out where Sebold was taking me now. So just keep in mind that what I've said about the characters might not be completely fair. All I know is that this novel could have, and should have, been a lot tighter and a lot less confusing. Due to the flaws in the structure, it never stood a chance to engage me.
 Very strange family ties... August 19, 2008
Strange book. I'm of two minds about it. It is interesting in that it delves into the psychological problems of the protagonist's parents. Issues including depression, suicide, dementia, agoraphobia are all part of the novel. Helen acts in some ways after her mother's death that ring true. On the other hand, some of her actions do not ring true. And while caregiver stress was part of Helen's problem, I felt the author could have brought this more to life so we could understand better what made Helen kill her mother (not a spoiler - happens in the first chapter). As it stands, it takes the entire book to see any reason for her actions, and then the reasoning still seems hazy. Organizations can offer help to the homebound.
I read this book just a few months after the death of my own mother, and that might have colored the lens from which I viewed this book. The book cover says this book is "raw and powerful" and it is. But I finished the book feeling uneasy and unsettled.
 Waste of Time August 17, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I enjoyed The Lovely Bones and expected to enjoy this book on my beach vacation. What a waste of time! I kept reading it, expecting it to make sense... but it does not get better... only more strange! Don't bother with this book.
 Pigeonholed August 13, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
Terrible!!! August 7, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I absolutely loved Sebold's first novel "The Lovely Bones" but this book, The Almost Moon, was TERRIBLE! It was boring from start to finish and moved at the speed of a snail. It was an interesting concept, but was very poorly executed. I don't recommend wasting your time on this disaster of a book.
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