Reply To: Beautiful Ugly: How did your thoughts and feelings about this book change as you completed each chapter?
Excellent summary Nancy. I’m glad it wasn’t just me who thought “I hope you die in your sleep” was super creepy. This phrase, paired with his visit to the cemetery where he saw a newly dug grave, lead me instantly to assume it was foreshadowing and that he’d end up in the grave at some point. Not necessarily that he would die, but…Unless he was imagining it. And that’s what Feeney did really well with his “unreliable narration.” At the beginning of the book Grady seemed “normal” to me. He had a bit of a dry, self-effacing humour. So even though he came across as a bit too needy and too anxious about his marriage, he seemed to be aware of his faults to some degree. But ultimately, layer by layer, we learn he was camouflaging a monstrous ego! On the island, every chapter put me on edge and I kept wondering if what Grady was relating was “real” or in his imagination. Between all his hallucinations (whether it was due to the tea or sleep deprivation), the creepy stories he keeps hearing, and the weird things he finds, I really wasn’t sure if it was the villagers messing with him or he really was starting to spiral into insanity. So there was a lot of fun back and forth for me when reading the book.
