Wha..... Why?

Book: alias grace
Author: Margaret Atwood
Completion date: 03/10/10
Method: borrowed (debbie)

I don't really understand why this book was written. When I finished it and read Atwood's research at the end and what was true about grace and what might have been fabricated i didn't really get it. Grace as a figure of Canadian history wasn't really a compelling character, especially not enough for a book of this size or length.
Now I understand a little, after hunting humans, our fascination with serial killers and murderers and I even understand the desire to fictionalize and romanticize their lives. We make them into romantic, tragic figures-especially women, when in reality they are just killers. Just like the men. This book seemed to want to be a biopic of sorts, similar to the josephine boneparte books, but grace is not a figure I would ever consider or think about. I had never even heard of her prior to reading this novel, and haven't really thought about her afterwards, either.
Now normally I love Atwood. I have found her writing in the past to be compelling, frightening and very witty at times too. I enjoyed most of her books, but is one just felt lazy to me. Grace was boring as a character, the wasn't enough to her, the doctor who attempted to understand her was likable and interesting, but his storyline is all but abandoned and we never hear from him again.
I feel like one of the main problems with this book is it count decide whether it wanted to be more fiction or more fact. I know that most, if not all of Atwoods books are exhaustingly researched but this one was too much of both. It was too real and at the same time not real enough. The further I get from it the less I liked it.


Xo-ellebee