Rating: 
Summary: Fully as engrossing as The Handmaid's Tale.
Review: Atwood brings to life people and settings about which the ordinary person knows little, but what really captures the imagination of the reader is, plainly and simply, the story. This is truly a "can't put it down" novel. I was so fascinated by the plot that it wasn't until after I finished the book that I realized the significance of the name, Mary Reilly."
Rating:
Summary: Literature meets True Crime genre in this stunning read
Review: This book deviates from Atwood's standard writing style. Those of us who love her unique and alarmingly perfect insight into the peculiarites of the female mind will love this book as just another wonderful Atwood read. But I think with this book her audience could expand - people who find Atwood "strange" would like this book because it focuses less on the "strange" epiphanies of the female mind and more on a good, plot-twisting, exciting mystery of a true account. This was a book I could not put down (coming from a law student who reads text until her eyes bleed this is QUITE a compliment). I would recommend this book for not just those of us fanatic Atwood fans but also people who have never read Atwood and just want a fantastic read
Rating:
Summary: A Very Unique Novel
Review: Skillful shifts of narration speed along what, on the face of it, seems to be a murder mystery and from the very first page the reader is compelled by a nagging suspense. The conviction and imprisonment of Grace Marks was an actual event in Canadian history, and Atwood weaves her fiction through the gaps of historical fact. Was quiet Grace truly a calculating, murderous sociopath? "Inside the peach there's a stone," writes Atwood. But as Grace tells her sad tale, ("Perhaps I will tell you lies," says Grace), the story expands into a true work of literature. Here is the reality of class distinction and the underbelly of Victorian culture("the ladylike bums that have sat on this very settee, all delicate and white, like wobbly soft-boiled eggs"). Here is the naivete of psychoanalysis ("as if it were he, and not she, who was under scrutiny"), and the impossibly complex relationships in which people find themselves suddenly entangled ("he wants to punish her for his own addiction to her"). All the way through, the reader is forced to consider Grace's crime through the thin fabric of circumstantial evidence: "Outside the window far away there's someone chopping wood, the axe coming down, the unseen flash and then the dull sound, but how do I know it's even wood?" Those new to Atwood's work might pick up Cat's Eye or the short story collection Bluebeard's Egg. For an entirely different read to Alias Grace, and a hilarious one at that, try Lady Oracle. And I think fans of Atwood would enjoy the work of her contemporary compatriot Alice Munro(try: Friend of My Youth).
Rating: 
Summary: Eclectic presentation; electric prose
Review: Atwood has presented us with another gift in her "Alias Grace".
Using unorthodox literary techniques, she keeps us turning
pages at a rapid rate while maintaining continuity.
She's taken a story that in and of itself is provocative
and richly layered it with her creative gifts of storytelling
and literary construction.
Rating:
Summary: A marvelous story seething with suppressed sensuality!
Review: This is a fictional tale based on a famous 19th-century murder in Canada. The convicted murderess, Grace Marks, whose innocence or guilt is still a controversial topic, is visited by a young physician who wants to learn what makes her tick. In the course of the book, we learn a great deal about Grace but also about the doctor and Canadian society of that time. The story is engrossing in itself, but for me the most effective aspect is the atmosphere of seething suppressed sensuality and eroticism that Atwood creates, which left me almost breathless at times. Being Atwood's creation, it is not surprising that the book says a great deal about the roles of men and women. In that context, the ending may be very appropriate, even though it is clearly a disappointment to some other readers
Rating:
Summary: Atwood has surpassed herself with this mesmerizing work.
Review: I have followed Margaret Atwood's career throughout the years, having gone to school with her sister Ruth. Ms Atwood was also an alumni of Leaside High School in Toronto -- but her early works left even a willing fan a little flat. In Alias Grace, however, Ms. Atwood has outdone herself. Faithful in detail, rich in mid-19th century Toronto and environ history, Ms. Atwood has woven her tale so expertly, one forgets all but the story. Grace's understated narrative is so authentic to the ear that one is compelled to keep turning pages. The story itself, one of Canada's more oblique mysteries, is the stuff of which Victorian novels were made. Yet Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery did die -- and Grace Marks did serve close to 30 years in Kingston Penn for her involvment in their deaths -- rightly or wrongly.
The fiction, woven into the fact, is more than plausible -- and as one plunges into the morality and mentality of the mid-19th century, one follows the story without the prejudices of today.
Captivating and compelling -- this is a must read for every fan of mystery, romance or history.
Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: What beautiful words.The ending was a let down
Rating:
Summary: "As captivating as ever"
Review: In typical Atwood style, Alias Grace tears a reader - you will not be able to put it down, but at the same time you will want to, so that the book is not over too soon. In Alias Grace, Atwood depicts a past time and place - the mid- to late-Nineteenth Century Canadian frontier - with the same vivid detail and effortless weaving with plot used in creating the future world of The Handmaid's Tale. And the characters who inhabit that time and place are full of the complexities, ambiguities, and resistance to categorization that are the hallmarks of Atwood's creations.
Based on the true story of Grace Marks, a woman convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1850s Ontario, Alias Grace explores immigrant life in latter 1800's Toronto, frontier justice, and the frightening state of the science of mental health in the nineteenth century. But as usual in an Atwood novel, these socio-historical studies take a back seat to the individual characters - primarily Grace Marks and the young doctor attempting to determine the state of her sanity - and to the beautiful, striking, and sometimes disturbing imagery used to show the story. Atwood's use of language is as captivating as ever: the phrases and sentences alone are such a pleasure to read that it almost seems a bonus that they also come together to tell a story.
Alias Grace is another gem in the crown of Margaret Atwood's canon.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Atwood!
Review: Alias Grace is a great novel. I reviewed for my local library
and when I saw the size of it, I thought this is going a long
and really boring book. As they say, appearances are deceiving.
In fact, the book is thought-provoking and intriguing. You can't
stop yourself from turning the page. You wouldn't believe how many
nights I was up to 3 or 4 in the morning because I couldn't put the
book down.
The only problem I found with the story was at the end, I felt the
author was grasping for material slightly. The book could have been
5 to 10 pages shorter.
Anyway, read the book! That's an order! Margaret Atwood has never
been at her best!
Rating:
Summary: mesmerizing
Review: The account of Grace Marks life is a story so rich in layers of reality and imagination that one can not stop until the last page to find out the complete meaning of her ordeal. Is Grace Marks an ordinary person of dim wit, a saint, or an evil creature?
Margaret Atwood writing is so beautiful and rich in associations. The beauty of nature breaths from the book and makes one feel as if present right there in the story.
Since it took me no time finishing the book as captivating as it was, I am already worried I will finish reading all of Margaret's Atwood books in too short a time, and then be pining for more!
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