Still Alice by Lisa Genova

She didn't want to become someone people avoided and feared. She wanted to live to hold Anna's baby and know it was her grandchild. She wanted to see Lydia act in something she was proud of. She wanted to see Tom fall in love. She wanted to read every book she could before she could no longer read.
Alice Howland is proud of the life she has worked so hard to build. A Harvard professor, she has a successful husband and three grown children. When Alice begins to grow forgetful at first she just dismisses it, but when she gets lost in her own neighborhood she realizes that something is terribly wrong. Alice finds herself in the rapid downward spiral of Alzheimer's disease. She is only 50 years old.
While Alice once placed her worth and identity in her celebrated and respected academic life, now she must re-evaluate her relationship with her husband, her expectations of her children and her ideas about herself and her place in the world.
Losing her yesterdays, her short-term memory hanging on by a couple of frayed threads, she is living in the moment, living for each day. But she is still Alice.
Still Alice is as compelling as A Beautiful Mind and as powerful as Ordinary People. You will gain an understanding of those affected by early-onset Alzheimer's and remain moved and inspired long after you have put it down.  (Summary from goodreads.com)

Read from March 24 to 25, 2010


My Review: 5 STARS
Still Alice by Lisa Genova is the story of Alice Howland. Alice is a brilliant psychology professor at Harvard, wife and mother of three grown children who has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease at the age of 50. I am not going to lie this story is absolutely heartbreaking and I had a hard time reading it through all of my tears. I don't think I have ever in my life cried so much while reading a book! This is the story of Alice's downward spiral into this devastating disease, she is stripped of her career, memories and her sense of self. Still Alice is so heartbreaking but at the same time so beautifully written that I found myself physically unable to set the book down. This story will stay with me for a long time.