Almost Moon - Alice Sebold

A woman steps over the line into the unthinkable in this searing portrait of a to-the-death struggle between a mother and a daughter. Clair Knightly and her daughter Helen are locked in a relationship so unrelenting that it has sucked the air out of both of their lives. And as this electrifying novel opens, Helen crosses a boundary she never dreamt she would even approach. But while her act is almost unconscious, it also seems like the fulfillment of a lifetime's buried desire. Over the next twenty-four hours, Helen's life rushes in at her as she confronts the choices that have brought her to this crossroads. A woman who has spent a lifetime trying to win the love of a mother who had none to spare, she now faces an uncertain and dangerous freedom.

In "The Almost Moon", Sebold explores the complex ties within families, the meaning of devotion and the fragility of the boundary that separates us from our darkest impulses. This is an unforgettable novel, a raw and powerful story, written with the clarity and insight that only Alice Sebold can bring to the page.


Why read - I have read her other two novels, and thought they both good, well written. I was donated this by a friend who knew i had read her previous works.

This novel was both a slightly harder read and gripping at the same time. It felt like you were unravelling a very knotted string, untagging and unravelling the plot, interwoven past and present, which unveiled why the character did what they did. This was very cleverly done and was the full intention of the author to write in this style, which is such a hard style to write in.  Nothing in the story is particularly black and white, and you have to read between the lines of the text to get the full force of this story.

However, along side that, it was a very powerfully written book, one that will stick with you. She writes it almost in a psychotic way, with a completely different train of thought than most and this makes the book rather interesting.  The plot of the story is raw, powerful and gritty, which is generally Sebold's style. But this makes an interesting and novel way of reading fiction.

I can't say you 'enjoy' a book like this, but its gripping, its moving and its intense. I appreciate her complexity of writing and couldn't put this book down once i had got into it. I think Sebold is a very intelligent writer and all of her books have reflected this brilliant writing style.