A review by izzybuck
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

4.0

This book resonates with the fallout of a difficult, conflicting relationship between a daughter and her mentally ill mother. The protagonist, Helen, is hardly the protagonist a reader should expect. She is flawed, and damaged by her childhood, and carries the burden of her mother - who suffered from some variety of mental illnesses - into her old age. This is where the novel begins, at the end of her mother's life. The opening sequence was suspenseful and scary - I had never read anything so morose and nihilistic. The distasteful descriptions of the mother brought to mind Dostoyevsky's descriptions of the elderly victim of Raskolnikov's in Crime and Punishment. Sebold's novel unfolds with the history of Helen's childhood, which, as the novel progresses, gives some understanding of the complexity of their relationship.
The writing and characters are truthful, terrifying and difficult to fathom - but the journey of the story is worth taking.