Christina's Review of *The Almost Moon* by Alice Sebold

        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 was definitely disappointed. I would probably give the book a 2 or a 2 1/2.

         Why didn't I like it? It's not the subject matter that I find most repellent. I just don't think the book is as well written as it could have been. Oh sure, the language is, at times, beautiful, but the story is 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. But 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. That was one of my main problems with this novel. It's hard to write a novel where the protagonist is remembering this time and remembering that time and have the reader want to follow along, unless you are able to do it in a compelling way. It would help to have a compelling protagonist whom the reader would follow to the brinks of hell, if necessary, and that's what Sebold is really asking the reader to do in this case. I don't think the flashbacks were necessarily confusing, just frustrating. Mainly, they were uninteresting and only served to distract me. 
          Furthermore, there's no real character I could get invested in. I understand the mother has mental issues, and so I feel for her and her family.  And I understand that Helen had a very complicated relationship with her mother, but the daughter is 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.

         The grown son whom Helen sleeps with is little more than a cliche. He's got minimal personality. Helen's ex-husband is somewhat interesting, as is the glimpse we are given of Helen's dead father, but neither character is intriguing enough to save this novel.

         I assume that Alice Sebold wanted to write about what life is like for those dealing with a mentally ill parent, and I respect her for that. The thing is, a book still needs to be interesting, even when dealing with a storyline about suffocation and madness. The book shouldn't be maddening to the reader just because the characters are that way to each other. Seeing as how Helen responded to her frustration by killing her mother, what will the reader want to do with this book that is the source of his/her frustation? Helen probably loves her mother deep down. As a mere reader, I have no such loyalty to this book.  Besides, in real life, no matter how bad things get, there is at least a reprieve here and there from the gloom.  There was no reprieve in this book.

          I can only speak for myself. For me, the problem with this book is the fact that the story is all over the place, so it was hard for me to get engaged. And then there’s the fact that the protagonist just seems to trudge through life, not even trying to get the reader to like her. The protagonist doesn't seem to care if you like her or not. She's just like, "This is the way it is, and if you care, fine. If you don't, well, that's unfortunate for me, but fine." By the end, she seems to be feeling more, but by then, it`s too late for me to care. And then the very ending was just weird.

          Oddball quirkiness only goes so far. You need characters who are full of life and full of passion. Well, if not full of passion, at least full of something other than memories. I think you have to be careful, when writing a character like Helen, to not just completely distance the reader from the story.

         Sebold was able to get away with writing about a morbid subject matter in The Lovely Bones because the character's voice was just so vibrant and alive---and the girl was dead! It was pure magic, and, so far, she has not been able to touch upon that magic again. But she is, no doubt, very talented and I wish her the best of luck with anything she writes in the future. I haven't given up on her or anything.

         To sum up, I'm not telling anyone not to read this book. That would be a bit arrogant to assume that I know how someone else will feel about it. I rented the book from the library. It really can't hurt to give the book a try. I usually adopt the fifty page rule. In this case, I read the whole book so that I could feel better about reviewing it. But really, I think that fifty pages or so is a fair sampling of what you're in for. So if you really want to, give it a try. Rent it from the library first before you decide whether or not to buy it.