I can't believe how horrible this book is.

[SmokingJacket]

"The Almost Moon" by Alice Sebold.

WOW! It's so bad! Just gratuitously gross, embarrassingly badly written, confusing, and reads as if she's making it up as she goes along.

I keep reading because it's like watching a car wreck.

Here's a sentence that should never be in any book: "This was not the first time I'd been face-to-face with my mother's genitalia."

[aquart]

1. But you "keep reading."

Which is how it got published.

[SmokingJacket]

2. Well... I didn't buy it!

I work at a bookstore, so I don't have to. ;)

I think it got published because her first novel was a megamega bestseller. They even made the covers look the same just in case anyone was unsure.

A first novel this horrible would never be published.

[Tesha]

13. It sounds like a "Sci-Fi Network Original Production"

They invariably suck, but sometime you keep watching as a
sort of comedy/cathartic exercise to see just how badly it
can suck by the time it reaches the inevitable conclusion.

The really great one suck all the way to the closing credits
whereas a lot of them just lapse into mere mundane awfulness
by the last reel.

Tesha

[TwilightGardener]

3. That sentence you cited...just...ewwww.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. I read about this book in the paper, here's some more.

'And there it was, the hole that had given birth to me.'


'In the last decade, I had become my mother's official enema-giver.'

'A surge of lust shot through me as I held it (her dead mother's sagging breast), as pure as an infant's appetite.'

Sounds like a prime candidate for that award that goes to horrible lines in books.

I thought Lovely Bones stunk, so I'm not surprised the new one is crap.

[TwilightGardener]

6. Jesus--awful writing. I picked up "Lovely Bones" at the store, since it was so popular

and Oprah-heralded when it came out, and put it down after just a page or two. Yuck.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. It gets worse.

The mother of the dead girl runs off to work at a winery in the Napa Valley. I was thinking, what the fuck is this? The author's mid-life fantasy?

[TwilightGardener]

8. Well, of course. Total yuppie literary fantasy. Mom couldn't very well

grieve, and then go back to work at the hair salon, or the human resources department, or the medical center, or wherever the fuck it is that most of us work. Nope, time to seek the "healing" and spiritual work of tending grape vines, or whatever that was supposed to symbolize. Glad I put the damn thing down in the store. I won't even get it out of the library now.

[regnaD kciN]

15. Actually, it sounds like a top contender for the Bulwer-Lytton Award...

...for the worst first sentence of a hypothetical novel. Except, of course, those entries are being made up as jokes, and don't come from real novels. :crazy:

[Sanity Claws]

4. A good past book is no guarantee of a good current book

That book does sound dreadful.
Have you ever read Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut? I thought it was absolutely dreadful, disjointed, etc. I guess he had bills to pay and just turned out crap. (I loved some of his earlier books.)

[terrya]

9. I was sort of looking forward to reading it.

I liked "The Lovely Bones" a lot.

Seems like this one isn't quite up to that level of writing.

[flamingyouth]

10. I liked "The Lovely Bones" too.

I had a coupon for this one but I think I'll save my $. :)

[ncabot22]

11. Personally, I think Sebold is overrated

I didn't care for "The Lovely Bones". Thanks for the warning on her new one.

[enough]

12. Well, you have perfectly echoed all the reviews. I expect to be lynched for saying

that I think this is a very good book. I'm not a Sebold fan or detractor (haven't read anything else by her).

The reviews of this book mystify me. I don't find a single word of it to be "gratuitous."

[krispos42]

14. Sounds like something the Faluffa Master would write...

Just throw in a crack pipe or three.



Was it O'Reilly that wrote the book about the teen being raped by a bear? Or was that Scooter Libby?

[Mad_Dem_X]

16. Umm, that was Scooter's book

with the child and the bear.

God, I'm ashamed that I even remember that!