Rating: 
Summary: Powerful and Beautiful
Review: Working from a fascinating historical incident: the murder of an emigrant Scotsman in Victorian Canada, Margaret Atwood has crafted an enigmatic and enduring anti-heroine.
I add my voice to a chorus of praise for Atwood's writing. Her prose is crystaline in its precision and clarity. A dark, almost macabre tale is illuminated with flashes of humour and striking symbolism.
Grace, a serving girl imprisoned (rightly or wrongly?) for the murder, emerges as an elusive yet fully flesh-and-blood character. Grace narrates the story, at once bringing us into intimate contact with her thoughts and shrouding the mystery of her actions. This is a device used in books like 'Rebecca' and 'The Turn of the Screw'; but here it's fresh and riveting. Grace seems simultaneously bewildered by, and in control of, her reputation as a murderess. It's this allure which brings Dr Simon Jordon to her prison, seeking to understand her psychology. The charged interviews between the two are especially powerful.
Just as her characters are strong, the writer creates a landscape in the mind which is fully alive and three-dimensional.
If I've dwelt on the novel's literary aspects, don't be put off. I enjoyed this book tremendously, and recommend it whole-heartedly.
Rating: 
Summary: Predictable story line
Review: This story of Victorian age women done wrong, although true, is much too often told. I won't reveal the twists and turns, but, at least in the book on tape version, there are few true surprises. That it is based on a true story makes it more interesting. But, reliance on dream symbolism and hypnosis are overwrought and overused techniques.
Rating:
Summary: Good Story, but not Literature
Review: Coming to this book as a reader of bestselling fiction, I would say that this book is a fantastic story, if a somewhat sluggish read. However, coming at this book from the perspective of a scholar of Literature I would give this book a lot less credit.
All of the symbols are obvious and heavy handed (Not a fan of Toni Morrison either). The apple, the quilt, the food metaphors...all served up to the author piping hot and predigested. There is no underlying cry about either the Judicial system as Atwood sees it or feminism, the switches in Point of View only seem to up the sympathy one feels for Grace, as opposed to adding some meaning to a work already lacking it.
In fact, this book seems to be a 500-page fictionalized biography of an historical character that simply is a sensationalistic read and a literary achievement by Atwood that says "Yes! I can create characters with Depth!".
The fact of the matter is that James Joyce addresses these same "feminist" issues in 5 pages of Dubliners, and Norman Mailer addresses the "prison system" aspects of this novel in a far more compelling and interesting way in The Executioner's Song. Atwood tries to be ambiguous and at the same time available, which doesnt work, since she isnt Hawthorne. She tries to be both experimental and traditional, which also doesnt work because she is neither Toni Morrison nor Thomas Mann. And most of all, she mistakes emotions and sympathy for depth, a common mistake by contemporary authors, and one which TRULY deserves, even if Grace does not, immediate imprisonment.
Rating: 
Summary: Stick through the beginning
Review: I consider Atwood's Handmaid's Tale to be a must-read, and have enjoyed everything else I've ever read from her. This novel is no exception - in fact I think it's the best thing she's written since Handmaid's Tale. Grace is a compelling protagonist, who fnds great insights as she puzzles through her confusing world. My only crtque is that the book gets off to a stutterng start, and you need to perservere as the multiple narrators are established. It is, however, very worth the perserverence.
Rating:
Summary: Telling Social Commentary
Review: This book is a fictionalized account of the true murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper (and mistress) Nancy Montgomery in a rural suburb of Toronto during the 1840's. It tells the story of Grace Marks, a simple housekeeper who was convicted of the murders along with Kinnear's stableboy James McDermott.The novel can be read as a murder mystery, but it is more satisfying as social commentary, especially in its comments on inequities of class and gender. Atwood has really done her homework: her writing is rife with the details of day-to-day life at the time, as well as the period's conventional wisdom regarding such topics as mesmerism, psychology, and the treatment of prisoners and the mentally ill. Grace is a fascinating --- if somewhat unbelievable --- character, but perhaps the story's strongest character is Mary Whitney, a tough but clever girl with wisdom beyond her years. I enjoyed this book a lot; the only disappointment was its artificially happy ending.
Rating:
Summary: Loved It
Review: Having first read, and loved, "The Blind Assassin" I wanted to read something else and decided on this. A fictionalized retelling of Grace Marks, a Canadian woman who was convicted of murder at the age of sixteen, I liked this even more than "Assassin", and found it hard to put down. Told mostly from Grace's point of view she recounts her childhood and employment leading up to the brutal double murders that many people think she did not commit, but was merely an unwilling accomplice. But the other element to Atwood's narrative is the doctor that is examining her to acertain what really happened that night. His story is equally compelling as Grace's. A rich, captivating read.
Rating:
Summary: Did Grace Tell the Truth?
Review: I just finished reading Margaret Atwood's 1996 novel Alias Grace. The ending left me up in the air. Alias Grace is based on the true story of a 15 year old girl, Grace Marks, accused of a double murder in 19th century Canada. Atwood reveals to us a passage where Grace is put under hypnosis. This is a crucial part of the story, in my opinion, and not mentioned by any of the reviewers. Grace is hypnotized to discover the part of the crime she says she doesn't remember. As Grace speaks we discover that during the crime she was another person, perhaps her friend, Mary Whitney, who died a horrible death in the bed next to her. Is Grace possessed? Is she psychotic? The word "dedoublement" used in the book in French means one who has two personalities, one normal and the other pathological. Are we, therefore, to believe Grace because of her illness and find her innocent of the crime or is she pulling the wool over our eyes during the session because she knows the hypnotist quite well, unbeknown to those attending the session. Did the two of them plan the session together to convince the others? Grace admits later at the end of the book to lying. For you to decide. A very satisfying novel.
Rating:
Summary: Very good Book
Review: I truly enjoyed this book. As you get deeper into it, each character gets more depth with a surprising end. I recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Not Atwood's best
Review: This is not Atwood's best book by a long stretch. 'The Handmaids Tale', 'the Robber Bride', and the especially exquisite 'The Blind Assassin' are much more enjoyable. This book is slow, and does not have the wonderful turns of phrase that her other books have.
While she does a good job of leaving the reader guessing as to the guilt or innocence of Grace, the question, of course, cannot be answered (being a true story) and leaves you disappointed. The prelude to the crime (Grace's history) is the best part of the book.
Rating:
Summary: dog ears a plenty...
Review: ...that's what you will see when inspecting my copy of Atwood's Alias Grace. (It was stop and go all the way through). Seeing that this book actually won some prizes, I was definitely expecting something more than a boring period-piece. Page after page is filled with smells, tastes, sounds, sensations, and contrived imaginings. Now while this sensory appeal worked with Atwood's "Cat's Eye" to great poetic effect due to the fact that these recollections were in a large part based on the author's personal experiences, in this book, it seems all too orchestrated in the hopes of constructing some sort of realism. Another technique that hopes to achieve the same end is Atwood's preoccupation with propriety - sure, this is a Victorian Era tale, but at some point, enough is enough woman - stop dwelling. Atwood is so overly wrapped up in focusing on propriety, taboos, and social standards that it makes you want to sit her down and say, "Ok, we're not in the middle ages!" or "There's more to a story than who snubs who and why!" or "Stop being so prim!" Atwood writes in the hopes of being subtly profound, but only succeeds in hemming and hawing her way through an endless and excitement-lacking series of events. She attempts subtlety through a tiring stream of run-on sentences that produce one comma after another, neverending, neverending, and oh yes, neverending. Extremely indirect writing. Lastly, the lack of actual dialogue set in "quotations" is rather annoying as well. This is due to the fact that much of the story is being told in first person by a female character to a male doctor. Thus, the only way to tell when Grace's speech includes quotations from other parties is when Atwood capitalizes the first letter of the quote, like this: ...and Nancy told me, He doesn't like dirty shirts, and so I washed it. Just the fact that there aren't any visible quotation marks to break up her speech makes the reading even that much more tedious and indistinguishable. How is it that everything Atwood has written after "The Edible Woman" pales in comparison? I don't know, but that book will forever be my favourite, and the gold standard against which I will judge all her other efforts. I just wish she didn't happen to slip into this sludgy style of writing that lacks her previous bite. All in all, this book isn't bad - it'll just test your nerve and patience a little. You'll also be treated to a less-than-spectacular ending, as seems to be her usual style of conclusion these days. The one thing that I did miss was the implication of some greater meaning, some larger idea that would hold the story together, as I found there was in The Edible Woman, The Handmaid's Tale, and not so much in Cat's Eye. If you like Atwood, this is one to consider, but definitely not one of my favourites.
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