This month our book was ALIAS GRACE, by Margaret Atwood. Jennifer nominated this book after having it recommended strongly by her sister.For the meal Jennifer suggested “comfort foods” – things that would make us feel better if we were in prison. Offerings included potato soup, cheesy bread, sausage/spinach bread, chocolate chip cookie pie, ice cream, and wine. It was all delicious!
This book definitely gave us a lot to talk about. The 6 of us at the meeting all really enjoyed reading it. The two members who didn’t like it couldn’t be there, which is unfortunate as we would have loved to hear their opinions.
Our discussion included:
- Our love of Atwood’s writing style and how she so realistically created the voice of a 19th century woman (something that is not done well all that often in our experience)
- The issues of gender, class, and repressed sexuality that were raised in the book
- The fascinating (and sometimes horrifying) details of life at this time – the daily chores, the prison system, current thought in the medical community, and so on
- The ambiguity of the ending was appealing – we each had our own opinions on what we thought “the truth” of the whole story was
- Atwood’s version of events versus the extremely few actually known facts about Grace Marks
Ratings:
- Heather = 8
- Jennifer = 9.5
- Nancy = 8.5
- Kelli = 8
- Melissa = 8.5
- Lissa = 9
- Cyndi = 2
- Beth = 5
Next Time: We're meeting on 3/20 to discuss THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett.
2 comments:
Hi there, I come to your blogs often. I am also a book club moderator in Myrtle Beach, SC. I read Alias Grace at least 10 years ago with my book club in NJ. I was hoping to get my book club to read this. It was a great book. I thought very gothic, with mystery what I can remember of the book. I just remember that I enjoyed it very much. I visit often but never write comments. But I had to tell you how much I loved Alias Grace too. Thank you
I enjoyed readinng this
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