Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Feb 28, 2008

Kendra rated it:

I wanted to believe that the backlash against this book could be explained by general disappointment about Sebold's second novel not living up to The Lovely Bones. Um, yeah. Not only did it not measure up, but I don't even want this book in the same ROOM with my other books. It really and truly is that bad. I tried, people. I tried. But when I spent 4 hours on a plane learning how to do Sodoku just so I wouldn't have to read one more heinous word of this novel, I knew that I was going to h More...

16 comments like (54 people liked it)

Nov 13, 2007

Angela rated it:

I was so hoping to like this book. I loved the beginning of "The Lovely Bones" and was hoping Sebold could keep it up through an entire novel. Unfortunately, on page 44, I read the worst line I have ever encountered in literature. I finished the book but never got over that awful, awful line. I have no idea if this is a good book or not. I only know it contains the most disturbing sentence ever written.

I am going to quote the sentence. Let's call it a public service. More...

20 comments like (44 people liked it)

May 24, 2008

Rita rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (25 people liked it)

Oct 31, 2007

Leanna rated it:

I mentioned a few weeks ago that Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones is a disappointing and overrated book. Imagine my pleasure and delight (I always like to feel justified) when I read several reviews (The New York Times Sunday Book Review and USA Today) absolutely trashing her latest book The Almost Moon. However, Almost Moon sounded so bad that I just had to find out how bad it is for myself.

First, do not read this book. The protagonist (if I dare use that word), Helen, kills her m More...

6 comments like (18 people liked it)

Nov 25, 2007

Anne rated it:

In 2003, my brother bought me Alice Sebold's first novel, The Lovely Bones, for Christmas. I was into it from the first page, and I couldn't help crying my eyes out. Later, I read her memoir, Lucky. I didn't think it was quite as well done, but it was about a very powerful topic, and it gave me some respect for where Sebold had come from and how much she had overcome. So, I eagerly anticipated getting this one from the long library waiting list. The Almost Moon tackles the difficult subject of More...

4 comments like (14 people liked it)

Jan 21, 2008

Rhian rated it:

Horrible, horrible, horrible. Bad in every way: terrible sentences, dreadful unbelievable characters, boring story. Includes this line, "This was not the first time I had been face-to-face with my mother's genitalia." Her genitalia has a FACE!!!! Downhill from there.

2 comments like (26 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2008

Jason rated it:

(My full review of this book is much longer than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

I freely admit it; that as a man, there are sometimes things that women do that utterly baffle me, and will probably continue to baffle me until the day I freaking die, just like it is with women regarding men. And that's because, avoiding any kind of qualitative judgment, I think we can all agree that there More...

14 comments like (13 people liked it)

Nov 30, 2007

Caroline rated it:

This was just not worth the effort it took to get through it, at all. I could have gotten over the main character murdering her mother (which is within the first sentence, so don't panic about being spoiled) if she weren't so unpleasant in every other respect. First she murders her mother, and then she goes on to do other things that are just as cringe-worthy.

I also could have gotten past how horrible a person Helen was...if they novel had any kind of point at all. I kept reading in More...

5 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 05, 2007

Ann rated it:

When I read The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold’s bestselling first novel, I thought, now what? What does an author write after that? How could she possibly top this novel?

Three short years later Alice follows with a realistic, maybe too real, new novel, The Almost Moon, that promises to ease its way up the bestseller list in a short time. In what seems to be Ms. Sebold’s tradition, The Almost Moon is a dark tale, not a cozy quick read. This story voices some of the worst emotions and fe More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Mar 03, 2008

Michelle rated it:

Let me start off by saying that I love Alice Sebold. 'Lucky' and 'Lovely Bones' were two books that stayed with me long after I finished them.

That being said, I hate to say that 'Almost Moon' was such a disappointment to me. I had read all the bad reviews of it and thought 'It can't be that bad.' Unfortunately, it was.

Was it because the story was about an unsympathetic narrator who kills her aged mother in the first chapter? Perhaps.

The rest of the story More...

4 comments like (6 people liked it)

Sep 13, 2008

Miss rated it:

I made it to around 60 pages before I chucked it across the room. Horrible horrible horrible all over the place, pathetic writing with sad, unlikeable characters.

1 comment like (9 people liked it)

Jul 10, 2008

Kellie rated it:

I am very troubled by this book. First, I found it so unnerving that someone could write about killing their mother. What kind of person does that? Well, I googled on Alice Sebold to find out and discovered that Ms. Sebold was brutally raped while attending college at Syracuse University. I believe that this brutal act of violence may be the catalyst that has caused Ms. Sebold to teeter on a violent edge that few authors dare to go. This book is about and told through the voice of Helen. He More...

5 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2008

Alison rated it:

I picked up "Almost Moon" because I am a Sebold fan. Like most of the reviews I have read, I loved "Lucky" and "The Lovely Bones". In both of these books there was the beautiful and inspiring as well as the ugly and devastating. Almost Moon is a whole other thing. It contains only the ugly and devastating.

The subject of this book is Helen, who quickly suffocates her mother in the first chapter, and takes the rest of the book to explain her actions, never More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 27, 2008

Carrie rated it:

I always want to REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY like her books, but this one was just "eh."

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Jun 28, 2008

Carin rated it:

Sebold has a gift for poetic tone and thoughtful metaphor. I love how you're just toodling along, reading away, and suddenly, BAM! she hits you with something like: "She looked up at me and smiled. 'Bitch,' she said. The thing about dementia is that sometimes you feel like the afflicted person has a trip wire to the truth, as if they can see beneath the skin you hide in."
Or: "I got her standing with ease, but once she was upright, she collapsed in my arms. It was all I More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Mar 08, 2008

Leslie rated it:

This book was extremely disturbing. The main character is introduced as seemly a normal woman whose elderly mother is entering her final years and at the stage of facing a nursing home or care facility. Even after she kills her mother, she tells the story as if this is just sort of a bummer day, almost, "Oh my gosh, I killed my mother. I don't want to be late for work." Ironically, I was even lulled into moments where I was not completely horrified at what just happened--and continu More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2008

Lorraine rated it:

THE ALMOST MOON is a brave book by a courageous writer. After the phenomenal success of THE LOVELY BONES, Alice Sebold could have chosen to write a sophomore novel in which she once again gave readers a sympathetic, utterly likable narrator like Susie Salmon. Instead, she writes through the voice of Helen Knightly, and Helen tells the reader, right from the beginning, that liking her is going to be a challenge:

When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily. Dementia, as it More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Oct 28, 2007

Lex rated it:

I'm currently reading this book and feel compelled to comment on it before I finish it. I am reading this book literally back-to-back with The Lovely Bones -- which I enjoyed enough to look into Sebold's other books -- but I find myself dismayed (disappointed?) with it.

Sebold has repeated imagery used in The Lovely Bones, practically verbatim. She's also reused surnames of characters. Initially I assumed this was to make some sort of callback to The Lovely Bones, implying this S More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2008

Ralph rated it:

I have to laugh at the negative reviews of Sebold's Lovely Bones, the comments that Sebold intentionally pulls at the heartstrings of her readers. This book will definitely disprove that. It deserves a serious "WTF." Maybe she was inspired by Murakami's Kafka on the Shore, there are a few similarities. After a powerful first chapter, the book goes completely off the rails. Even knowing what to expect from Sebold's NPR interview, I don't expect to finish this one. It is too sick More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 23, 2007

Monty rated it:

I couldn't put this book down so I read it in two days. What I especially liked about the book was how the author used stream of consciousness thinking (flash backs)to explain the thoughts and actions of the main character during a 24 hour period just before and after she kills her demented mother. Also, as unreal as the events seem in the this story, they stem from the main character (who grew up in a disturbed family) making some minor poor choices under stress, then making a major poor choi More...

2 comments like (11 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2008

Jayne rated it:

This book was disappointing as compared to Sebold's first novel, The Lovely Bones. While well-wriiten, the story started on a bleak note and never left it. There was little reason to really like or connect to the protagonist.

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 27, 2008

Ellenjsmellen rated it:

After reading the first line of this book, I had to continue this to see where it would finish. Interesting family life revealed through memories.

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 06, 2010

Myth rated it:

I read Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" and picked this up, because I haven't seen another book out by her in a while. I was already aware of Sebold's slightly morbid and blunt style.

Her style is not one of my favorites. I like getting to the point, but I feel like Sebold goes the extra mile. It's like she writes about unpleasant topics and magnifies the experience as a deformed after thought of description. I do have to appriciate the bluntness and usual clarity.

W More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 12, 2008

Anya rated it:

I am a bit at a loss as to what opinion to profess about this book. Some people claim Sebold has gone over the top, exaggerated the violence far too much (looking at you there M! ;) while others state Sebold's typical writing style is as raw and bold as before.

First things first. I am grateful for that Sebold seems to have outgrown her ridiculous comparisons. In "The Lovely Bones" I came across a couple of over-exaggerated expressions and comparisons (mostly of the way a c More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 07, 2008

Diana rated it:

There is a line people do not cross. Helen Knightly, middle-aged divorced mother of two and caretaker of her chronically mentally-ill elderly mother, Clair, crosses it more than once in this unnerving and haunting twenty-four hour narrative. In effort to clean away the acrid scent of her mother soiling herself, Helen wraps Clair in blankets, sickly thinking, "Super Giant Mother Burrito," takes her out on the porch and instead smothers her with a towel.

Alice Sebold, author o More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 11, 2007

Zainab rated it:

I would give it a 2.5 stars if i could, but as it's a choice between 2 and 3, it will have to be 2.
...............................................................
i was so excited when i saw this in the bookstore. i loved The Lovely Bones, and was really looking fwd to reading this. I am about half way through, and am desperate to throw it out of the window, but I will persevere. So far it's weird beyond reason.
...............................................................
More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 04, 2009

Kate rated it:

I got to page 100 when I realized I was not going to finish it. I don't know why I lasted that long. It is a very strange book, and the topic (going mad) is better covered elsewhere. At least, that's what I think the topic is. I was constantly confused who was who in the book. Was the narrator talking about a daughter, a sister, or a best friend? Was the man mentioned the father or his son who had the same name? Whatever. I'm looking for something else to read.

4 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 17, 2008

Lain rated it:

This is one of the worst books I've read in a long time. Not because the writing is poor -- in fact, just the opposite. Sebold is such a talented writer that what she's done with this book is nothing short of a travesty.

Am I supposed to feel sorry for Helen, the daughter of a mentally ill mother she ends up killing in her old age? There isn't enough hurt and anguish in her for me to believe she did so out of long-simmering rage. Am I supposed to feel outraged at the brutality of the More...

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 30, 2009

Jozip rated it:

Alice Sebold writes her characters so poetically and her plots keep you on the edge of your seat. This makes for a great commute/beach book. However, the plot feels so far-fetched at times that the reader is left wondering if this is a great work of fiction or just the latest novel on the convenience store rack.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 20, 2007

Pierce rated it:

Whew. Pretty gripping and pretty disturbing. One split-second wrong decision leads to another, and another...

There was this sort of disconnect between the childhood of the woman and what was going on in the present. The stories of the past certainly made you pity her, but it didn't really explain the crazy actions she kept taking over the days. Rather than nodding sympathetically, it was more like: "Sweet fuck, where the hell did that come from?"

I also got the f More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)