Caroline's review
The Almost Moon
by Alice Sebold
I have heard the same kind of thing from reviews about this novel, so will not be reading it despite having liked 'Lovely Bones'.
Vivienne
I'd heard the same things, but also liked Lovely Bones and was hoping that the reviews were all a lie. It just seemed too unlikely for her to go from being really great to really icky. I like that she tries to go for shocking/unusual material, but something definitely went wrong with this one.
But, yes, good to know there's people out there that are actually avoiding it...like I should have.
Out of morbid curiousity I read reviews on this book even though I had no intention to read it. I thought Lovely Bones was very poorly written and I was interested to see if my personal assessment of the author's talent was that far off. After reading your's and other's reviews of Almost Moon, I won't bother, for the sake of fairness, to give her work another chance. Thanks.
Happy to hear you dodged the bullet that is The Almost Moon! If you didn't enjoy Lovely Bones, I doubt there'll be anything redeeming in this book for Alice Sebold. At all. While it is completely different from Lovely Bones, at least the LB had a protagonist you could get behind and understand. Even mucking through the nearly 300 pages, I couldn't sympathize with the protagonist of Almost Moon.
Caroline's review
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
Caroline's review
rating:
bookshelves:
fiction,
read-in-2007
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 hopes that it would resolve anything, and it doesn't. All it does is confirm mental illness and a horrible childhood, all of which is pretty obvious from the first chapter, and that's it.
The writing itself drove me a mad, as well. It's written in more stream-of-consciousness, so the story jumps all over the place because Helen's mind jumps all over the place. One second she'll be narrating how she's panicking over what she did to her mother, and the next she'll be five years old and talking a...more
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 hopes that it would resolve anything, and it doesn't. All it does is confirm mental illness and a horrible childhood, all of which is pretty obvious from the first chapter, and that's it.
The writing itself drove me a mad, as well. It's written in more stream-of-consciousness, so the story jumps all over the place because Helen's mind jumps all over the place. One second she'll be narrating how she's panicking over what she did to her mother, and the next she'll be five years old and talking a...more
I have heard the same kind of thing from reviews about this novel, so will not be reading it despite having liked 'Lovely Bones'. Vivienne
I'd heard the same things, but also liked Lovely Bones and was hoping that the reviews were all a lie. It just seemed too unlikely for her to go from being really great to really icky. I like that she tries to go for shocking/unusual material, but something definitely went wrong with this one.But, yes, good to know there's people out there that are actually avoiding it...like I should have.
Out of morbid curiousity I read reviews on this book even though I had no intention to read it. I thought Lovely Bones was very poorly written and I was interested to see if my personal assessment of the author's talent was that far off. After reading your's and other's reviews of Almost Moon, I won't bother, for the sake of fairness, to give her work another chance. Thanks.
Happy to hear you dodged the bullet that is The Almost Moon! If you didn't enjoy Lovely Bones, I doubt there'll be anything redeeming in this book for Alice Sebold. At all. While it is completely different from Lovely Bones, at least the LB had a protagonist you could get behind and understand. Even mucking through the nearly 300 pages, I couldn't sympathize with the protagonist of Almost Moon.