"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."
I don't normally review books. (I mean, how much more in-depth can I get about Twilight?) But I'm not sure any have ever affected me like this one. I chose it from what I now refer to as my "To Be Read" list and stayed up late last night to finish, unable to put it down. It was moving and emotional and terrifying and all I could do was wipe the tears away with a corner of the blanket as I cried through most of the last half. This morning The Husband told me he's never heard me talk in my sleep so much as he did last night.
Read this book. It's incredible.
(Thanks, Natalie!)
8 comments:
I'm intrigued....this will be put on my books to read list as well. I have experienced Alzheimer's disease up close with my step grandmother and now my sister in laws father, who seemed to be doing well with medication until recently. The last time I saw him it was apparent his mind is deterioating rapidly. It is a heartbreaking disease. Thanks for this.
This book is being passed around my family as we are going through the sad process of one of your loved ones being scumming to Alzheimer's. I haven't read it yet, but thank you for sharing. I will get to it soon enough, although I haven't had the strength yet.
Wow, lots of bad grammar in that one. I swear I read books!
Wow, that sounds like a very powerful book. I have an aunt that has early onset Alzheimers. She started losing her memory when she was about 55 and now at age 70 doesn't know anyone, including her husband. It's very sad. I usually don't read heavy books because I can't take being so upset by a book, but I might just read this one.
yeah, i read that a while back, and you're right - it's emotional AND terrifying - yet highly recommended.
Good choice :)
I hope you will understand that, despite this book sounding totally marvelous, beautiful, haunting, and intriguing, my pregnancy-hormone riddled self will not be touching it with a 35-foot pole.
Unless you would like to volunteer to be the person I call, sobbing, at all hours of the day and night?
I didn't think so.
Heeeyyy...maybe I should line up Twilight as my post-partum light reading. Would that be a good idea?
thanks for the review - it sounds very sad and touching. btw, I guess Twilight was on cable last Sunday evening. My girlfriend watched it and she is now hooked. I guess I'll have to see it...
thanks for the shout-out. don't you love it when a book affects you that much? maybe not ha but i really do! i'll take reading a book over watching tv any day!
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