Alias Grace

I almost always feel like I would enjoy Atwood more of her books were judiciously edited.

First re-read of one of my favourite books after about 8 years and Margaret Atwood remains my favourite along with this book. Grace Marks is a fascinating and complex character and this book is just an amazing piece of historical fiction. Yas Queen Atwood!

Love Atwood, love speculative fiction (which she does so well). But I did kind of have to drag myself through parts of this. Themes felt too heavy for the plot to carry.

I just couldn't get into it.

Pioneered the “Feminist” as a genre meaning (both a critique and a compliment). I have nothing to say on this that the millions of feminist writers online haven’t said millions of times better. When I ask my boyfriend who his favorite feminist is he answers “my girlfriend” and then says “and Margaret Atwood”.

before amazing amy and gone girl, there exist amazing grace and alias grace. i am always game for ambiguity and unreliable narrator and i got the best of both here. grace marks was a cipher through and through and it was such an exquisite thing to read her 'accounting' her experience to others (unassuming men!) and excelled in it. that ending! YES YES YES

loved it but ending was kind of boring.

This is one of very few books that had me up at 4 in the morning to finish. Margaret Atwood is a treasure; this book reminds me a bit of True Grit in style; Atwood has faithfully recreated the manner of speaking and writing of the mid-19th Century, with all its class divisions, while creating a story based upon true events that is riveting and tremendously satisfying for readers. Her depiction of 19th Century life and womens' place therein is well researched and full of truth. One detail I noticed was her offhand comment about an immigrant who jumped overboard in mid-Atlantic because he could no longer stand the constant sea-sickness; Herman Melville witnessed and wrote about exactly such a thing on an ocean crossing in the 1850's. This is the sort of attention to detail that makes me love Ms. Atwood's writing.

so bad. i read this for school so thats kinda self explanatory

I cannot put into words how truly compelling this book was. Margret Atwood is literary genius. Every chapter of this book had me aching myself for how much tension and suspense this novel gave me and the ending was the perfect addition. I’m going to start reading more Margret Atwood because she is such a thrilling author with captivating pieces.

I absolutely loved this book! I could not put it down and was thinking about it when I wasn't reading it. I can't wait to watch the Netflix version of this. Margaret Atwood must have done so much research for this and I'm glad she did. What an interesting story made all the more interesting because it was based on a true historical event. Highly recommend this one!

On one hand, you want Grace to move on with her story and not entrap us with her daily activities. On the other, Atwood, who has structured this narrative so elegantly, subtly drives us through the minds of her secondary characters who have lived with, observed and judged Grace Marks for her apparent murder. While it is a true story, Atwood's depiction of the cynicism towards (relatively) modern medicine and faith in acts of redemption is arguably accurate.

THIS WAS INCREDIBLE! Honestly, one of the most intriguing books I've read this year. The story of Grace Marks is so interesting and was approached in a great way. I think she did an amazing job with retelling these events. The magazine articles of the time were a great addition to the story. The author lets us make up our own mind about Grace's supposed innocence and for me, that was one the best things about the book. It kept me guessing all the time. All the character had depth and contradictions, they were at the same time good and evil; humans, really. I'm a history junkie, so I really loved the setting of the book and being able to experience the culture of that time. I believe that one of the most important aspects of this book is how women are seen in society and throughout the story, the sexism of that period, that perpetuates to this day, was constantly described. On the book, women were portrayed as weak-minded, the fragile sex, less capable than man and immoral beings. There were some passages about this that felt very harsh to my 21st-century ears that were considered to be true at the time and that still are for some today, of course in a much less obvious way. Grace herself represented the stigma suffered by women: is she week-minded and fragile or is she evil and insane? There is no black or white. Women were not considered to be complex, whole human beings. As a feminist, I really loved this particular characteristic of the book. It led to thinking about the role of woman today. I also really loved the writing, although it took a while to get used to it. Well, I really recommend this book. It's amaaaaaaazing! Just go read it. NOW!

Oh, Margaret. I tried, I really did. I got to about page 50 of this book before I realised that I cared nothing for any of the characters or what they were doing. I was vaguely interested in fact that Grace's family left Northern Ireland for the 'new world', as many of my ancestors had done, but even that story arc didn't hold my attention for long. I persevered until I realised I actually hated this book, and then gave up 100 pages from the end. Shame, for I always like you so...

Gave up after 2/3. Just didn't care about any of the characters.

Alias Grace isn’t what I expected. I suppose I thought this would be similar to Atwood’s most famous novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. And it was in some ways, especially in the tone of the main character. Though I can’t quite call Grace a protagonist, as Offred is in the aforementioned classic of dystopian literature. What I wasn’t expecting was very well researched historical fiction. “Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word - musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase. Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor.” I’m not sure how this happened, but I somehow managed to completely miss the fact that this novel was based on a true story until I reached the afterword. Grace’s story is fascinating, and is made even more so by the fact that she was a real woman and the crime she was accused of really happened. Because no one quite knew what was truth in regards to Grace’s life and possible guilt, Atwood took it upon herself to give Grace a fictional voice and allow her to tell her side of events. Atwood did this brilliantly, giving Grace a voice that rang true. “If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.” This book could skew much too descriptive for many readers. However, I wallowed in the descriptions found in Grace’s tale, as they did much to aid the setting in time and place, and brilliantly illuminated Grace’s character and what made her tick. Grace is obsessed with the physical, and she laces her story as she tells it to Dr. Jordan with a minutely detailed account of her wardrobe and the wardrobes and belongings of others present in her tale. As she is a talented seamstress, this would appear fairly natural. But on further consideration, it shows how much material goods matter to Grace, and seems to convey a lack of caring and compassion about her fellow human beings. She carefully studies every situation and assumes the role she determines is expected of her without showing much real emotion. I found her wily and cunning, and by the end of the book I was still just as unsure of her guilt or innocence as I was of her character. “A prison does not only lock its inmates inside, it keeps all others out. Her strongest prison is of her own construction.” Atwood really knows how to write. The craftsmanship of this book is impeccable, and the prose definitely helped draw me deeper into the story. Atwood deserves the accolades she has received over the course of her career. She is truly on of the masters of the craft for our time. You can find this review and more at Novel Notions.

I absolutely loved this book and once again enjoyed Margaret Atwood's fantastic writing style. She definitely is one of my favorite authors and an amazing story-teller!

Margaret Atwood's writing is the kind that leaves me awake at night, staring at the ceiling and my thoughts spinning at a thousand miles a minute, too in awe to even pull them together into something orderly and coherent. Okay, so, first. Characters, because I care the most about characters in a book. They're pretty much all terrible people. I liked Dr. Jordan at first even if he wasn't perfect, (view spoiler)[until the way he acted toward Mrs. Humphrey, (hide spoiler)] and the way he thought about women in general. At any rate, he was one of the narrators, and that was enough to interest me in him. The way men treat women in the story (James McDermott, Grace's employers, Grace's father) is an abomination. At that time, it was the norm. The novel highlights it as such, and I do not actually think Atwood is a raging misogynist (not that I've done any research into her life). That doesn't actually make me like the men, though, including the ones who were not (attempted) rapists or abusers. That includes, say, Jamie Walsh. I thought his little schoolboy crush on Grace was sort of cute, (view spoiler)[until he decided she was guilty, and then until he turned back later to beg her forgiveness. He's not a great husband. (hide spoiler)] Then there's Mr. Kinnear, who I didn't really care for, mainly because I didn't really care for any of the men in the book. (Or any of the characters in the book. Then why have I put this as my 'loved characters' shelf? I'll get to that.) He didn't have much personality. Also, Mackenzie was a conceited prick - I'll agree with Dr. Jordan's assessment on that point - and Reverend Verringer was a bore, nothing more, nothing less. Then there's the women. I didn't care for Nancy at all; I didn't hate her, but she was more of an irritant to me than anything. I was okay with Grace, who personality-wise didn't have a lot that I liked, but I adore her because I love her narration. I was initially attached to Mary Whitney - her coarse language, her friendship of Grace, both were points I went for. Now, under the cut, I will discuss how that changed. (view spoiler)[When I found out about the ending, I decided I heartily did not like her. Certainly she never tried to harm Grace directly, but they were friends, and their friendship seemed and seems to be real. Except that you're not a very good friend if you decide to possess her, and more than that - just possession I would have forgiven - make the people around her think she's going mad, and doing things like screaming and throwing fits that spoil her reputation further, and having affairs with people and letting Grace wake up and have strange men hovering over her, trying to have sex with her. Also, judging from the way she talked at the end of the novel, Mary Whitney is extremely rude to the people around her, some of whom she doesn't even know well. Although I should have known she would be, considering how Grace spoke of her, but I can't see how she got along with Mary if that's how she behaved. They don't exactly have much in common. Funnily enough, towards the very beginning of the novel I predicted Mary wasn't a real person, but an imaginary friend of sorts that Grace had made up and hallucinated, and was actually a second personality of hers that was guilty of the murders. I dumped this theory later when I learned Mary was indeed a real person. When I think about it, it's pretty close to the truth. (hide spoiler)] ...To summarize, the only character I actually liked was Grace. Everyone else annoyed me or was boring. To say I loved them would be an overstatement, but they fascinate me. I could talk about them for hours, not because of their amazing personalities, but because of what they contribute to the story, which I can't say I've ever cared about much before. (Please don't test me on the 'talk about them for hours' thing. I'm still pulling myself together.) And that is why this book is shelved the way it is. Other things I liked: - I will always remember Margaret Atwood as the person who made me remember I like classics. - The plot twist at the end. It was...well, I'm not actually sure how I feel about it. Part of me is disappointed, because while it was foreshadowed to the point it was almost obvious, (view spoiler)[this book wasn't supposed to be a book about spirits, or the supernatural, or whatever. And it's not. I knew from the start Grace was probably mentally ill in one way or another and was innocent in some way, but I feel like introducing sudden supernatural elements and expecting that to just go smoothly with the rest of the story didn't make sense. (hide spoiler)] another part knows it interests me. I don't care about plot much, but I care a lot about plot twists and how they affect the characters. - Grace's ending. I so badly wanted a happy ending for her, and I would say that qualifies as a happy ending. Was Jamie appearing somewhat out of nowhere and changing his mind a little abrupt, especially when there wasn't much writing between the major events of the novel and the years that passed until she was released? Yes, but it makes sense. It's kind of bittersweet, because I knew Grace wasn't going to have a happy ending, not without Atwood making a bunch of things up and introducing a new character by either rushing the plot in the last few pages or extending it by quite a length and swiveling the focus of the story. Jamie Walsh isn't exactly the best husband she could possibly have and they don't love each other with the passion of a thousand burning suns, but he is a decent enough person, and by the end of the novel, she is much more well off than she started as. Good is good enough. - The narration was so skillful, I loved it. Atwood implies a lot of things that get across quite well without having to be direct, and she's very good at setting the atmosphere. The shift between voices, the way Grace's narration (and Dr. Jordan's, too) was written - it was amazing. To conclude: I really loved this book. I don't know if I got that across, but I love this book, and I love Margaret Atwood a lot.

the journey to the end was amazing and the quilt. yes

Some parts were a bit boring (Simon's parts) but otherwise great book

I am a huge Atwood fan and this is one of my top 3 books of 2021. I‘ve had it on my shelf for years. If you are into historical crime fiction you should definitely read this one.

After so much YA, I had forgotten that trance you get after finishing a really good, complex book, when your mind just whirls all you have read over and over for an hour after finishing, connecting the many, expertly guised threads.

“If we were all on trial for our thoughts, we would all be hanged.” This is my first Atwood and it certainly will not be my last. I will say, that I would not recommend this for readers who do not enjoy ambiguous endings.