Still Alice
Lisa
Genova
Reviewed by Ashley
Merrill
One of
the most depressing books I’ve ever read,
Lisa
Genova does a great job at portraying the terrifying world of
Alzheimer’s
disease. Her story stars Alice, a woman who is in her early fifties who
appears
to have it all. She has a husband, and together they work at Harvard
University; she as a very popular research professor, and he working on
trying
to find a cure for cancer. Alice also travels all over the place giving
lectures on her research of choice.
Alice has a beautiful house, three children, and is in tip top
shape.
Small
events start to happen that cause Alice to go and
see a doctor. While jogging through her
neighborhood, she suddenly cannot figure out where she is, and goes
through a
few terrifying moments of being completely lost in the place she knows
like the
back of her hand. Things start to get worse when she forgets that she
has a
flight, forgets she has class, and asks questions multiple times,
forgetting
that she’s already asked them. Her
neurologist, after many tests, finally diagnosis her with Early Onset
Alzheimer’s disease. Refusing to come to terms with it, Alice’s
husband, John,
tries to blow off her forgetfulness as menopause, or some other curable
ailment. It doesn’t take him long to be forced to accept it because
Alice gets
worse; fast.
The
story takes you through her progression, and her
despair becomes your despair. You can’t
help but imagine you in her situation, and your family being forced to
endure
the declining of their mother. It’s sad, scary, and mortifying;
something no
family ever wants to go through. Lisa Genova gives it to you straight.
She does
not sugar coat it at all. She allows you to see not only Alice’s
suffering, but
her family, and her community. Alice was
a mother, a wife, a friend, and a colleague; all of that greatly shaken
from
this incurable disease.
Lisa Genova
comes at the reader with wave after wave of
events. She also allows you to tap into the mind of Alice and see that
what she
is doing, her odd behavior, her forgetfulness, seems normal to her
because she
isn’t aware she is doing it half the time. You get a little peek into
what it
may feel like to have Alzheimer’s disease.
Because of the different angles that Lisa allows you to view,
this piece
is put together extremely well and is written in a tragically beautiful
way.
I’m not really sure who I would recommend as the target
audience. For someone who is already going through this, with a family
member
or friend, this is not a book that offers hope, just more despair, so
don’t
read it. I think maybe someone who is interested in this field of
study, or of
helping this type of population, this gives you at taste of what to
expect. The
book is worth buying, if for nothing else, then because it donates up
to three
dollars to the Alzheimer’s Association for each book purchased.