Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: A Book Review

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: A Book Review

Last year I read the Handmaid’s Tale, another one of Atwood’s masterpieces and it ended up being one of the best books I have ever read. So when I saw that Netflix is adapting another of her tales, I promised myself that I will read the book before I watch it, as any sensible bookworm would do.

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Unfortunately it took me a while to get to it because let us face it, Atwoods aren’t the easiest read, especially considering that these are  and I had easier books to read. So finally when I actually got to read it, was it worth it all? Read on by Book review of Alias Grace!

About Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

alias grace

Book Name: Alias Grace

Author:  Margaret Atwood

Genre: Fiction – Thriller, Literary, True Crime

Characters: Grace Marks, Dr Simon Jordon, James McDermott, Mary Whitney

Setting: Ontario, Canada, Ireland, the UK

Plot Summary of Alias Grace

Grace Marks has been imprisoned since she was 16 years old for the murders of Mr Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery along with the fellow servant James McDermott, who was hanged. A select group of gentlemen and ladies who are convinced that Grace is innocent try to acquit even after an almost a decade has passed since her imprisonment.

They request Dr Simon Jordon, a doctor of the mind, to interview her and build a report to support their cause. Dr Jordon is fascinated by Grace and is more interested in understanding the levels of her sanity than worry if she is guilty. Thus Grace starts recounting her tale from her impoverished childhood in the Northern Ireland to her incarceration.

Born in a family that had too many mouths to feed, Grace was the one to look after her surviving siblings. They sail to Canada when their father becomes a person of suspicion in a local arson and a related murder. Her mother passes away during the journey and their father’s ways soon make her the only working member of the family.

Grace joins Mrs Parkinson’s household as a help where she meets Mary Whitney, who becomes her trusted friend. Mary’s death in ‘abrupt circumstances’ causes Grace to search work in other places and finally she ends up at the Richmond Hall. Within a few weeks, her life is turned upside down and she is sent to the asylum and later the penitentiary on being convicted for the murders.

Dr Jordon is baffled without being able to tell whether Grace is as innocent as she tells him or he is being played. He also struggles through his own battles trying to ward off his desire for his landlady and his mother’s pressure to settle down soon.

How far will he go to find the truth, especially when the truth is too close to home and he is facing the same dilemma himself? How does his scientific mind fare against her faith laden beliefs? Is he a worthy opponent for Grace at all? You will have to read Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood yourself.

Book review of Alias Grace

Atwood’s writing is as expected hard to get into but once you do that, time will fly while you read through those 450+ pages. Much like the Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace speaks much about the gender and the class discrimination. I was hooked to reading about symbolism on the quilt pattern that I had to Google more about them.

I loved the story of Dr Jordon interwove with that of Grace’s personal story without pacing it down. His relationship with the landlady, how he succumbed to it after much resistance and then his dreams about him murdering the estranged landlord showed how much common he had with Grace than he realized.

Alias Grace is dark and melancholic and yet Atwood’s fictionalized version remained true to the facts, as per her afterword where she discusses the known facts of the case. My stance on whether Grace was guilty, or not, changed every time a new part of the puzzle was revealed

Only a seasoned writer can have that ability to make the reader do that even when they know how it was gonna end (thanks to the reviews I had read earlier).

Bottom – line

I can’t now wait to see the Netflix adaptation of the Alias Grace and hopefully I will feel as great as I do after reading the book. If you like true fiction and/or the Handmaid’s Tale you need to read this without fail. I loved it.

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Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: A Book Review

Death on the Nile: A Book review

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie has been on TBR forever now and I finally had the opportunity to read it. And incidentally I got to watch the 1978 adaptation soon after. How did that turn for me? Read my book review of Death on the Nile to know more

About Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile

Book Name: Death on the Nile

Author: Agatha Christie

Genre: Fiction – Thriller Classics

Characters: Colonel Race, Simon Doyle, Hercule Poirot, Linnet Ridgeway, Jacqueline de Bellefort, Mrs. Allerton, Tim Allerton, Dr. Carl Bessner, Miss Bowers, Jim Fanthorp, Ferguson, Salomè Otterbourne, Rosalie Otterbourne, Andrew Pennington, Cornelia Robson, Marie Van Schuyler, Joanna Southwood

Setting: Egypt

Plot Summary of Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile is set on the streets of Egypt and features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who is on an adventurous trip full of action in Egypt. While he is on vacation in Egypt and is sailing on a river boat on the river Nile, he finds himself in the middle of two murder mysteries.

The book focuses on 4 major themes:

  • good will always conqueror evil
  • things are not as they appear on the surface
  • greed and revenge are not justified
  • Every individual has a choice between right and wrong.

The book takes a bit of time to set up all the characters and laying out the plot. The murder doesn’t occur until the mid-point of the book and this keeps the readers involved and curious.

Each one of the characters in the book has a motive and each one of them has secrets of their own. And it doesn’t come as a surprise that Christie does a great job on the red herrings.

Hercule Poirot was much more lighthearted in this story and also made little jokes about him which added a different look to his character.

Bottom-line

The book is a complete feast for the book lovers as it is really going to stick with you till the last word. Read the book yourself and awaken the hidden detective in you.

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Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: A Book Review

Death Comes As The End: A Book Review

People, I am on a roll. I read another Agatha Christie on the way home back and she surprised me yet again. I was expecting a straight forward Whoddunit; and she delivered much more than that. Dame Christie takes a different route with Death Comes As The End from her normal slueth plots and makes it a historic fiction with lots of family drama. Intrigued? Keep reading.

Book Name: Death Comes As The End
Author: Agatha Christie
Genre: Fiction – Thriller
Characters: Imhotep, Nofret, Renisenb, Yohmose, Satipy, Sobek, Kait, Ipy, Hori, Kameni, Henet
Setting: Ancient Egypt

Death comes as the end

Unlike the usual Christie novels, Death Comes As The End is set in the ancient Egypt and talks a lot about the practices and belief system of Egyptians. The lives of the seemingly peaceful family of the Ka Priest Imhotep is disrupted when he arrives with a young and manipulative concubine Nofret. Though they do not voice their opinions out aloud, his sons and their wives resent her. To get them back, Nofret schemes to get rid them and rob them out of their legacies. Soon her body is conveniently found dead at the foot of the cliff.

The family dismisses it as a fateful accident but the body count continues to raise. Everyone has a motive and almost all of them have had the chance. What follows is a classic whodunnit; chase that only Christie can spell out. And of course I am not gonna spoil it for you, and you will have to read Death Comes As The End to find it out more.

Death comes as the end

Death Comes As The End is a compulsive drama with a mystery focus with an interesting cast. I never was able to guess who the murderer was until it was revealed. At one point I was sure who the culprit was, only to find out they were the next victim. I swear this is quite rare. The last time that this happened was with another Agatha Christie.

I was watching the Murder on the Orient express last week, just after I finished reading this book and I couldn’t help but wonder how does she do it? How can Dame Agatha Christie think up so many variety of drama and add a thriller element to it. I give up, she is the best of best.

If you want to read a short mystery with an element of family drama, Death Comes As The End should be your pick. You can read my reviews of other Agatha Christie novels here.

Which is your favorite Agatha Christie novel? Do you like them made into films? Have you watched the Murder on the Orient Express? Let us talk.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: A Book Review

Book review: Camino Island

Reading and learning new things about the publishing world has been a great interest of mine, as it should be for all book nerds, for a while now. And it might not come out as a surprise that I love a thriller and the good ol’ chase. How would it be if these were combined in a single book? Presenting the Camino Island from none other than the king of legal drama, John Grisham and it takes place in the literary world (yay!). Lets get on with it, shall we?

Book Name: Camino Island
Author: John Grisham
Genre: Fiction – Thriller;
Characters: Mercer Mann, Bruce Cable, Denny, Jerry, Mark, Trey, Ahmed, Elaine Shelby
Setting: Florida, The USA

A five member gang pulls a heist at the Princeton’s Firestone library and takes off with the F. Scott Fitzgerald’s original manuscripts. The FBI successfully nabs two of the five men and the others rush into hiding with their loot.

When they hear the manuscripts are about to turn up at the Camino Island, an (imaginary) island near Florida (I looked up) they send in Mercer Mann as an undercover agent to spy on their prime suspect Bruce Cable. Mercer is a currently unemployed teacher and a struggling writer/novelist who had a grandmother on the island, while Bruce is a bookstore owner and a patron for several authors who regularly visit Camino Island as a publicity hop.

Mercer also gets to Bruce’s colorful life with his literary friends and his wife, and tries to find inspiration for her work. Was Bruce really the bad one? Did they recover the manuscripts and how? You should read Camino Island to find out.

While it has been a few years since I read Grisham’s books, I have loved his legal thrillers and have been a true Grisham fan. And that is one of the main reasons I picked this book up when I saw it on the Amazon’s top sellers. But Camino Island seemed nothing like those high tension dramas, even with the awesome literary characters.

Bruce is the ultimate bad boy dream come true. He has amazing friends, loads of money, and a wife whom he is in an open relationship with. Who am I kidding? Let us get real – Who cares about those stuff? He owns a bookstore and reads a LOT and has so many author friends. Seriously he is the dream. Oh did I say that he is the bad guy (or is he?) and dabbles occasionally with the illegal, black market and literally a book thief. Woohoo!

Mercer was an aspiring writer who has not submitted her manuscript to her publisher in the past three years and is recently laid off from her teaching position. With million dollars at stake, she is pushed to playing amateur sleuth.

Camino Island

Camino Island

Camino Island has some interesting characters but what fails for me is that it turned out from a thriller to a romance novel midway. How am I supposed to take that from John Grisham himself? I have come to expect too much out of him to read a ‘good girl falls for the bad boy‘ from him.

The heist itself kinda fell short for me (and it comes up in the first few chapters) but it didn’t deter me from hoping Grisham’s writing will salvage it. But after the part where Mercer comes in and ‘falls for Bruce’ it didn’t even sound like Grisham anymore. I was sorely disappointed in the plot and the writing part.

The saving grace was that I was reading about the literary world, independent writers, and retail booksellers, though the excitement ran thin soon. I have learnt my lessons about having high expectations. I am going to go back to reading some of Grisham’s good ones from the yesteryears.

If you can dive into it without any huge expectations based on John Grisham’s older legal thrillers, you might enjoy Camino Island as a quick read at the beach or for your book club.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: A Book Review

Crooked House by Agatha Christie: A Book review

When we hear about Agatha Christie‘s books we immediately associate them with Monsieur Poirot or Miss Marple or the lesser known Tuppence. I was pleasantly surprised that none of these characters would be appearing in Crooked House.

To be honest I had never heard of it, until one of my book blogger groups chose Crooked House as the read of the fortnight. Read my book review to know how this ‘whodunnit’ turned out for me.

About Crooked House

Crooked House

Book Name: Crooked House

Author: Agatha Christie

Genre: Fiction – Thriller

Characters: Charles Hayward, Sophia, Brenda, Josephine, Aristide, Philip, Magda, Roger, Clemency, and Eustace Leonides, Laurence Brown, Edith de Haviland, Chief Inspector Taverner

Setting: London, The UK

Plot summary of Crooked House

Charles Hayward returns to England from European war with the hope to marry Sophia Leonides. His plans are spoiled when hears that her wealthy grandfather Aristide Leonides has been murdered, by his own family, no less. Sophia asks him to help her finding out the culprit and announces that she cannot marry him until this is solved. She also indicates that ‘it would be easier if it was the right person.’ His father, Assistant Commissioner of the Yard, gives his assent and encourages the idea.

The police suspect the young widow and the tutor while they plead innocence. As Charles gets closer to the family, he understands why Sophia mentioned their ‘ruthlessness.’ Along with Sophia’s sister Josephine, Charles tries to find out the real murderer, but not before another murder in the family. Find out who killed them by reading Crooked House by Agatha Christie

Book review of Crooked House

First off, it is DAME AGATHA CHRISTIE, so I don’t really have to say anything about her writing. She had me guessing who the killer was and kept me engrossed till the last page. Everytime Charles speaks to a member of the Leonides family, it was not only him that had to keep changing his theory but also the reader. And that is the power of Christie’s writing and the strength of her storyline.

I loved how apt the term ‘crooked’ fits to their house, the members and their characteristics. It ends kinda abruptly but it was not a big deal.

Bottom-line

It has been months since I read an Agatha Christie‘s, and Crooked House made me realize what I had been missing out. If you are in mood for a ‘whodunnit’ you can not go wrong with a Christie.

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Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood: A Book Review

Book review: Come Sundown

You know what makes a winter night cozier? Hot chocolate? Yeah, that too but more so a romance. It has been years since I read a Nora Robert but I remember seeing Come Sundown on the Amazon top seller list I decided to give it a go.

I have read Nora’s books earlier and I knew what I was in for with Come Sundown. I knew I was going to have a solid plot, well-drawn characters, and that happy ending. Did she give me what expected? You will have to read the review to know more.

Book Name: Come Sundown
Author: Nora Roberts
Genre: Fiction – Romance thriller
Characters: Bodine, Rory and Chase Longbow, Callen Skinner, Alice Bodine
Setting: Montana, The USA

The story begins with Alice Bodine’s abduction in 1991 and moves ahead to introducing us to the present day Bodine resort run by Bodine Longbow. The upscale Bodine resort along with the Bodine ranch, run by her brothers Chase and Rory, offers the ranch experience to its guests.

Bodine has no time to think about her love life and her whole life revolves around her family and running her resort. All that changes when Callen Skinner, her childhood crush, and her brother’s best friend comes back to the town and starts working at the ranch. The couple has always liked each other, but they decide they want to keep it casual. How far would they go before they realize they are destined for each other?

What could have been just a mere romance (gasp, did I say mere?), turns into a thriller when bodies of two women associated with the Bodine family turn up. As if that was not enough to rise a havoc, Aunt Alice returns to her family but severely abused and traumatized. Is there any connection between the murders and Alice’s return? Or is it Cal’s return that we have to worry about? You will have to read Come Sundown to know more.

Heavily marketed as a romantic suspense, Come Sundown could have easily been a thriller. The romance part didn’t work well for me (more on that later) but the mystery and thriller part held the book tight. It might come as no surprise that thriller is not a new genre for Nora, as she has been writing thriller under her alter ego J.D. Robb for a long while now.
Come Sundown
Nora’s books have always had a great emphasis on the familial bonding and subplots make them worthwhile. Come Sundown is no different. Rory and Chase’s romantic lives play a great distraction from the leads’ story. Which brings me on to Bo – Cal love which was tepid at the best. Apart from the physical attraction they have been harboring since their teenagers, I never found anything clicking between them. No passionate love that is usually promised by the genre. It is supposed to be a romance, dammit.

The most interesting character in the book was Alice Bodine. Hers was the only one that had a development. I have always loved reading about psychos; and social outcasts. Well, her suffering through rape and physical abuse caught me right into the story.

Nora’s writing is exceptionally good and I have come to expect nothing less from her. All you Nora Roberts’ fan you will love Come Sundown. If you are new to Nora’s writing, it will take a bit of your time to get into the setting and just sit through the introduction to every character in the story. If you can get through it, you will not regret this 400+ page romantic suspense, or as I call it a thriller.;