Disturbed and Confused

I am usually the person raving about the newest book I have just read and encouraging others to read it. However, this one time I am going to save you some heartache and tell you NOT to read The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. Stop reading now if you don't won't to be spoiled...I'll give you some space before I continue...



I was so excited to see another book by this author as I had loved her earlier work The Lovely Bones. I should have saved my excitement. The first chapter finds the protagonist, Helen, smothering her elderly, mentally ill mother with a towel after the the mother has soiled herself. After years of caring for her mother (who we will learn in flashbacks was an agoraphobic, yet very vain woman) Helen finally snaps. The rest of the book plays out over a 24 hour period that shows Helen dragging her mother's body throughout the house - washing it in the kitchen, sitting with it on the porch, and finally stuffing it in the basement freezer and cutting off the woman's braid as a memento. She calls her ex-husband and admits what she did and he tells her not to leave the house that he will catch the next plane and be there in the morning to help her. Obviously this means that she will drive away in her car to her best friend's house and have sex with the friend's son. Because that is what you do after killing your mother and stuffing her in a freezer.

How does the book end? I don't know. Did I finish the book? No. May I have found out that it redeemed itself if I had? No, I highly doubt that as well.

So basically in summary, this book is just bad. Don't read it!