The Almost Moon

2023 Advent, Day 6: I started reading and instantly became very sad as it was a story about a mature (her kids are fully grown adults) taking care of her aging mother who seemed to have mental struggles and likely developing dementia. This is a subject i am already very sensitive to and so braved myself for some cathartic crying. I was prepared for a novel exploring aging and mortality and healing generational wounds and trauma even if one participant cannot even remember the issues. NOPE. the woman murders her mom. This is a story about trauma, just not the kind i was anticipating, and about matricide.
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If you should be interested, I do not count the above as spoilers because that all happens in the first couple of chapters, and is show more strongly hinted at in the plot synopsis on the back cover. Judge a book by it's cover? Clearly was not me today..... show less

This is the story of mental illness and how it can affect families. Helen is looking after her elderly, agoraphobic mother. Her father had committed suicide may years earlier. Helen's own relationships are shaped by the influence of her parents as she grew up. The book portrayed these issues very well, and Helen was an interesting character. I really was enjoying this book...until the end. Because it doesn't end...it just stops. Most unsatisfying.

This story is about the mental illness of an entire family, not just a mother. Everyone in the family is a victim, something I think many of those who have reviewed "The Almost Moon" on LT do not understand. Since it is written from the point of view of the daughter, Helen, it is easy to become lost in her memories of her childhood and miss the illness of her father, whom she idolizes. It is a horrifying, dark, and achingly sad book, but compelling, especially for anyone who has experienced caring for a mentally ill parent. The big question for me is, "Why does she stay, why does she continue?"; the same question I have had for myself. But the second important question is, "How could she not stay?"
This is an important book for anyone show more who is honest enough to admit their love/hate relationship with a parent, and who can relate to the desire to end the suffering. show less

After the first page I had to continue to see how Helen gets 'out of this one'. She has just killed her 88 year old mother. I read the book to find out why she would do such a thing! I'm not sure I'm happy with the explanation, but like a lot of people Helen has disappointed me- she doesn't even have an iron clad reason. Finding out about her life I defiantly empathize and maybe that's all she wanted. Interestingly strange book.

I should preface this by saying that I have never read a book with an accumulative star rating this low before. It also confirms that star ratings are ridiculous - or maybe that one star ratings are compliments in disguise.

Can someone explain to me why a story has to have likable characters? Why someone who is clearly loosing it should act in a way a sane reader finds believable? I'm pretty sure when I read fight club I didn't think I would act that way... but she's a woman, so she has to be in fiction that can be quickly accessed and then resolved with a nice bow on top.

Let me be clear: this book is poisonous. It's hits hard, especially to anyone who understand complicated issues between mothers and daughters. But that's what it's show more supposed to be, it's supposed to be poisonous, it's supposed to disturb the reader and make us feel bad and I thought it was very well crafted.
To me, the character made perfect sense, and I even liked her as much as that is possible. She did the best she could for a long time and then she snapped and did something she couldn't take back. I thought the book depicted that situation beautifully.

Now, I have thing for Alice Sebold: I thought The Lovely Bones was good and entertaining, but my special interest is in those books that were generally described as disappointing, like Lucky and this one. Maybe her way of seeing the world just makes sense to me, and maybe that doesn't bode that well, but just because she describes the world out of the viewpoint from characters who may not fit exactly in the nice, uplifting story with a bow on top formula so predominant in so-called "women's fiction" doesn't mean it's bad writing. show less

I should preface this by saying that I have never read a book with an accumulative star rating this low before. It also confirms that star ratings are ridiculous - or maybe that one star ratings are compliments in disguise.

Can someone explain to me why a story has to have likable characters? Why someone who is clearly loosing it should act in a way a sane reader finds believable? I'm pretty sure when I read fight club I didn't think I would act that way... but she's a woman, so she has to be in fiction that can be quickly accessed and then resolved with a nice bow on top.

Let me be clear: this book is poisonous. It's hits hard, especially to anyone who understand complicated issues between mothers and daughters. But that's what it's show more supposed to be, it's supposed to be poisonous, it's supposed to disturb the reader and make us feel bad and I thought it was very well crafted.
To me, the character made perfect sense, and I even liked her as much as that is possible. She did the best she could for a long time and then she snapped and did something she couldn't take back. I thought the book depicted that situation beautifully.

Now, I have thing for Alice Sebold: I thought The Lovely Bones was good and entertaining, but my special interest is in those books that were generally described as disappointing, like Lucky and this one. Maybe her way of seeing the world just makes sense to me, and maybe that doesn't bode that well, but just because she describes the world out of the viewpoint from characters who may not fit exactly in the nice, uplifting story with a bow on top formula so predominant in so-called "women's fiction" doesn't mean it's bad writing. show less

I got drawn into this book almost despite myself. I started reading without knowing what it was about, and once I realized, I had to pause before I decided if I wanted to venture into anything that started like this:

"When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily. Dementia, as it descends, has a way of revealing the core of the person affected by it...She had been beautiful when my father met her and still capable of love...but by the time she gazed up at me that day, none of this mattered."

In the end, I found the story compelling enough not to be able to abandon it once I started. Sebold writes well, no doubt about that. She has a very strong, honest voice for what are very difficult subjects: first rape (In Lovely Bones and show more in Lucky), and now a murder; murder of one’s own mother. Her writing style is good too, and from time to time she manages to punctuate it with metaphors that are both strikingly concise and bring out the essence of things. show less