- Title:
- Still Alice
- By:
- Lisa Genova
- Pages:
- 292
- Rating:
- 5
Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman’s sudden descent into early onset Alzheimer’s disease, written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D in neuroscience from Harvard University.
Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what’s it’s like to literally lose your mind…
This was a deeply moving, highly charged and absolutely terrifying story. It’s something I fear, as I’m sure many of us do, the loss of our mental faculties. Seeing it here impacts very hard. Some of Alice’s conversations with Lydia moved me a great deal and the grandchildren also held a lot of atmosphere. Not a book to read without a tissue to hand, but one anyone should at least think about reading. It covers a spot that could strike any of us and any of ours.