Alias Grace

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.

Everyone(?) is terrible

A fictional retelling of Grace Marks' real story which brings the characters to life without drawing its own conclusions.

It's rare to enjoy a mystery which goes unsolved, but Atwood's Grace and the various side characters are so compelling and colorful I don't really mind knowing if she's guilty or not. Mary Whitney and Jeremiah the peddler are highlights in support of Grace and Dr. Simon Jordan's delusional confidence, as is the sheer unfairness of the historical setting. Despite seemingly constant backsliding in the quality of life people can expect from generation to generation and corporations using LLMs as a pretext to slash countless jobs, almost everyone born in a first world country is immeasurably better off than Grace.

The plot centers around Grace recounting her troubled life to Dr. Jordan, who hopes to make a name for himself by restoring her 'lost' memories of a murder she allegedly participated in at 16. 19th century Canada (and briefly Ireland) is not a setting I'm overly familiar with, so just seeing it from the perspective of an immigrant servant girl was pretty interesting. There's a definite (and maddening) contrast between all Grace has gone through and Simon failing upward his whole life, which at least balances out somewhat by the end.

Overall nothing in particular stands out but I had a good time reading it; falls into the 'well written but not exactly my cup of tea' bucket.