The lovely Bones, book review. (Alice Sebold)

Wow. A book about murder, death, abandonment loss and depression, that leaves you feeling happy, joyous and longing for more. Wow indeed. 

This book got some good reviews when it first came out and was of course made into a film (which I saw a few years ago), but like most of the books I read, I read them when I feel ready, not when the hype or the movie release dictates. 

Told in the first person by a murdered fourteen year old girl, (Susie) the book takes you from the high of a teenager's first kiss, to the low of her death. Raped and killed by a neighbour, in a hole he'd dug in a corn field, (and then dumped in a sink-hole), Susie's body is never found; so her family never really find out what happened to her.

Once dead, Susie is unable to rest in her heaven, so she visits her family and friends as often as she can; her brother repeatedly comments on how he can still see his sister, but as a reader, we're never really one hundred percent sure if he can or not. This, I think, adds a nice element of uncertainty to the book. 

We witness her father's slide from successful businessman and loving husband, to a broken man who's lost his daughter, his wife and his mobility, (he suffers from a heart attack later in the book), all whilst Susie's brother and sister grow up, with their mother in California. 

There is great drama when Susie's sister goes in search of clues in the killer's (neighbour's) house, and then there's chapter 16, where the family, her school friends and the local community, go to the field where she died, in recognition of the anniversary of her death. This is one of the best chapters I have ever had the pleasure of reading, in any book, ever. It is so moving, so perfectly timed within the story and just has you reeling for more. 

Powerful stuff them? You bet, and Alice Sebold keeps it coming until the very end, but I won't reveal any more here, I’ll just finish by saying whatever you do, READ THIS BOOK. 

The Almost Moon, book review. (Alice Sebold)

Having purchased Alice Sebold's 'The Lovely Bones' for a work colleague and it receiving high praise, I decided to purchase 'The Almost Moon' when it cropped up in my local charity shop. 

The book is set over a single, twenty four hour period, and starts with Helen Knightly tending her mother. The tension between them is tangible and within a few chapters, Helen Knightly is a murderer. 

Sebold handles what is a very personal crime, with great skill. During the book, Helen seems to go from slightly deranged, she has sex with her best friends son (he's an adult), to being childlike, she confides in her ex husband that she's killed her mother, and everything in between, like going to work, which happens to be life modelling.

This is a short book, and an odd one too. The subject of matricide is one that I hadn't come across before, but an interesting one all the same; and as you read further, a history of agoraphobia and other mental illness's in the family are revealed. So, reasons for Helen's instability become apparent, and the author could easily have tried to justify the murder this way, but she doesn't, she just uses the past to explaining why Helen might have murdered her mother. 

So, a good little book then. Three and a half stars, but not four, so I'll settle on three.

Now all I have to do is borrow 'The Lovely Bones', which I saw on film but haven't read yet.