Book Summary and Reviews of The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

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Robin

A Compelling Story -
An utterly addictive read - right through to the end. I finished the book in two sittings - almost fearful to immerse myself in Helen's life when I began to read the second time. Caretaking is a mine field - fraught with emotions - especially when responsibility is put upon a child. Alice Sebold's Helen crossed the line that many face - the build-up to the book's opening comes after - a fast paced tale of tragic lives with various parallels to our own. Excellent!

Cloggie Downunder

Powerful
The Almost Moon is the second novel by Alice Sebold. Helen Knightly narrates the story, which begins when she murders her mother, Clair. As we follow events over the next 24 hours, we learn about Helen’s life and what brought her to this momentous act: her love-hate relationship with her mentally-ill mother; her career as an artist’s model; her failed marriage; her dysfunctional relationship with her daughters. Helen has spent her whole life exposed to mental illness so it seems almost inevitable that she will question her own sanity. Sebold explores loyalty and devotion, and the fine line that exists between the impulse and the act. This is a powerful and passionate story, full of black humour. I enjoyed The Lovely Bones: this one is at least as good, if not better!

Archimedes

Terrible
As much as I wished to relish this book, I discerned it to be quite deplorable. Affirmative, I genuinely do sympathize with the woman, as she is a neurotic with illogical decision-making. ASPD describes an individual who shows patterns of manipulation and violation to others and this main character reflects these traits accurately. However, indubitably if the reader so chooses to believe in the factual sense - based on how they perceive this novel; this book is deplorable. The antagonizing and excruciating poor-timed flashbacks serve well in portraying how mentally ignorant and dull-witted this character is, causing the reader to procure a great sense of disgust of this book and to despise the poor performance this author has done, as well as the author herself. She wasted a multitudinous amount of irremediable paper and resources. This novel is an utter failure but accurately portrayed the entitled perception of what insanity is like from a falsely hopeful author who attempted to insolently reflect this mindset of a true psychopath.

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