The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold

Front Flap: With fierce intelligence and emotional intensity, Alice Sebold brings us a searing portrait of a mother-daughter bond that descends into murder. Clair and Helen Knightly are a parent and child locked in a relationship so unrelenting that they have become the center of each other's worlds. But as this electrifying novel opens up, Helen crosses a boundary she never thought she would approach. And while her act is almost unconscious, it somehow seems like the fulfillment of a lifetime's unspoken wishes. Over the next twenty-four hours, Helen's life rushes in at her as she is forced to confront the choices that have brought her to this one riveting crossroad. As a woman who spent years trying to win the love of someone who had none to spare, she now faces an uncertain and dangerous freedom. With her unflinching ability to confront the violence and danger that lurk beneath life's everyday surface, Sebold explores the complex tie within families, the meaning of devotion, and the thin line that separates us from our most haunting impulses. The Almost Moon is unforgettable, a raw and powerful story of passion and redemption written with the strength of voice only Alice Sebold can bring to the page. This was just powerful and creepy and intense and passionate and crazy as it gets! MAN! When I first started reading it, I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue. It kinda freaked me out. I mean all the moments of after she killed her mother, like cleaning her and freezing her and cutting off her braid. It was really weird. But yet it was what she always wanted to do, and it came so easy to her. Most of the book was memories, kinda like the book I read a few ones back, and it made me like the style a little bit more. The memories are what makes the present story real, because you have to know all the history of the characters to understand what's going on. But after a while, I must say I did get into it, especially at the end, I wasn't quite sure what she was gonna do, but I had a feeling that she wasn't gonna kill herself, because she couldn't put her daughters through that. And also there was Jake, who flew all the way there to help her out, and even lied to the police for her. Endings like that always make you want to know what happened after! I guess that's what also makes the book how it is, you don't know the ending! So it's up to your imagination to make it up for you, or to kinda guess what happened. I would say this is a kind of difficult read, because it is pretty gruesome in spots, but it's worth it. I can tell it's she who wrote it, because I've read Lovely Bones, which I need to go see in the theaters btw. So it was def a great novel and I want to read her other one too, Lucky I think it's called.