Debrachris wrote:
First of all my name is not Rebecca - I'm Debbie and I kind of jumped into this discussion ( I was originally discussing The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox) because I enjoyed "Almost Moon" more than "Vanishing Act" but that's not saying a whole heck of a lot. Neither was outstanding. I appreciate that Sebold has tackled a very difficult and trenchant topic: the quality of life question and the elderly. Many people are facing this dilemma (elderly parents); I did over the past 4 years and it is really, really difficult. So for that reason, I found the book interesting.
One comment: Did she have to break Mom's nose?!? Somehow that made it all the more unpleasant!
I gather from reading some interviews with Sebold that she may have observed a similar co-dependent kind of relationship with her elderly grandmother and her mom. Maybe this book was her way of dealing with her personal feelings about that. I did get the feeling that Sebold was intentionally making Helen as unlikable as possible. When she was trying to give her some elements of "niceness" I felt that she was insincere, and it made me dislike Helen even more. She seemed so disconnected from everyone in her life, even from herself. All the frustration Helen felt for her mother, I felt for Helen.
I consider it a good book in that the author was able to suck me into her imagined universe, but let me tell you, I was anxious to get the heck out of there. I felt like Helen's personality was a kind of black hole, sucking up all the color and emotion around her. I keep envisioning her mother's braid "throbbing" on the bed before she cut it up and flushed it. I don't know why, but that image just gives me the creeps.
On the surface, the book was about the whole caring for the elderly issue, but on another level, I feel like if Helen hadn't had her mother to obsess over, she would have transferred those feelings to her daughters, to Jake, to Hamish, to her father. . .but, oh wait, she sort of did, anyway. I just didn't like Helen, and it was hard for me to get past that. All I could see at the end was how disaster followed in her wake, and how it was inevitably going to KEEP following everyone whose lives touched hers.
I struggled with the story initially but after awhile I got pulled into it. I should finish the story tonight so I'll pop back in to see what has been posted by those who have already finished it.
