Review: The Almost Moon

Alright, this review is going to be a little tough.  I so wanted to like this book - it's been SUCH a long time since I've read anything that blew me away, let alone something I felt deserved a rave review.  Anymore it seems I'm either not able to get through books, able to get through them but left with nothing to say, or frustrated by certain aspects of them. 

 The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold opens with this sentence:  "When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily."  Groan.  Unless this book were a comedy, or even laced with a comic tone (it is neither) a sentence like this, in my opinion, has little place opening a novel.  Thus from the beginning, I was skeptical - but still hopeful that Almost Moon might win me over in the end.  So I persevered.  

Of course, the novel tells of a woman, Helen, who murders her Alzheimer's-stricken mother, Clair, after a particularly grueling day of elder care.  Is Sebold trying to tap into humanity's deepest, darkest desires, I wondered?  To haunt those caring for aged parents with the knowledge that they secretly want to murder the parents and re-claim their freedom?  Could this simply be yet another version of the old Electra thing?

As it turns out, however, Helen spends the rest of the book "justifying" her actions by appealing to her difficult childhood; she was forced to endure the mental illness of both her parents, and finally her father's suicide.  I guess this is supposed to supply ambiguity by implying Helen's own mental illness?  But other than the initial murder, and her thoughts of suicide at the end of the novel (right before she's caught by the police, no less) there is little evidence that this is the case.  To be honest, I still can't figure out what this book is supposed to be "saying."  Its grave tone and subject matter suggest that it must be trying to "say" something, but what exactly that is remains a mystery.  "Families are complicated;" "mother-daughter relationships are especially complicated."  Ok, sure.  Is that it?

I wanted to like this book so badly.  I remember thoroughly enjoying The Lovely Bones.  Have I really turned into that big of a snob?  No, I don't think I ever would have loved this book.  The bottom line is, it's...well...sort of boring.  But it tries to be profound by making insightful comments on the nature of humanity.  Unfortunately, it ends up coming off as disjointed and flighty.

I think I'll have to follow this one by re-reading something I know I love, because this is just getting ridiculous!