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🧠 Unlock the mind’s most intimate story — before it slips away.
Still Alice is a bestselling debut novel by Harvard neuroscientist Lisa Genova that offers a rare, deeply personal look at early-onset Alzheimer's disease through the eyes of a 50-year-old Harvard professor. Praised for its scientific accuracy and emotional depth, the book has earned a 4.6-star rating from over 22,000 readers and ranks among the top medical fiction titles, making it an essential read for professionals and caregivers seeking insight into this devastating condition.
| Best Sellers Rank | #12,399 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #42 in Medical Fiction (Books) #581 in Women's Domestic Life Fiction #990 in Contemporary Women Fiction |
| Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 22,872 Reviews |
S**N
Still Alice could be titled Still Carolyn
This is my second reading of Still Alice. At the first reading, my sister Carolyn, age 51, had been diagnosed with EOAD, and the disease had progressed to the point at which I had her placed in a facility with a separate Alzheimer's unit. I had kept her in her home with round-the-clock caregivers until I ran out of people willing to tend to Alzheimer's patients. I dearly loved Carolyn and was determined to find the best place for her to live out her days. In many of the places I visited, I saw groups of people who were heavily sedated. It was heartbreaking to see patients, with no life in their eyes, staring at a television screen. I became frantic until I found the perfect place for her. The facility itself was home-like, cheerful, secure and spotless. It was surrounded by beautiful gardens and outdoor patios. The residents were a lively group, and the staff treated each person with loving respect. Everyone was kept busy and activities abounded. I visited Carolyn four times each week and watched her decline. She still knew me and even my name until she had a psychotic break. The end was near, and I begged God to take her. As of this reading of Still Alice, she has been gone for two years. My last good memory of her occurred when she bent down and plucked a single blade of grass and marveled at it. Lisa Genova described EOAD so accurately that I read my sister's life through her eyes. I became concerned when Carolyn was unable to find the word for the simplest object. A chair was the "thingy that you sat on". Everything became a thingy, much as it did for Alice. She also repeated herself numerous times in our frequent coast-to-coast phone calls. Her husband refused to take her to a doctor or to even admit that anything was amiss. As a result, my husband and I moved back East from California. Soon after we got back, Carolyn's husband died, and I immediately took her to a neurologist. He determined that she was in the advanced stage of the disease. Although he prescribed Aricept and Namanda, he cautioned me to expect little from the drugs. I always wondered what went through Carolyn's mind because she was unable to articulate her thoughts. The book gave me some insight, although I do not think it possible to read someone's mind. I often wondered when she crossed the line between knowing she had Alzheimer's and having no clue. She had occasional bouts of anger which I think rose from frustration. The biggest irony to me is that the more the disease progressed, the gentler and sweeter she became. I likened her to a happy little toddler. Finding Alice was a comfort to me. I was especially happy that Alice's children rallied round her. Lydia, in particular, who had butted heads with her mother for years became her greatest champion. I was ambivalent about her husband, especially when he wanted to move her to New York to secure his dream job. I learned from Carolyn's doctors that Alzheimer's patients possess a strong sense of place. Expecting to take Alice from the only home she knew because he incorrectly assumed that she wouldn't know the difference was wrong on many levels. On the other hand, I couldn't fault him for commuting to New York. As a full-time caregiver for so long, he had a right to pursue his dream. Leaving Alice with her children, grandchildren and a paid caregiver was the best solution. As another reviewer wrote, this book should be required reading. As the baby boomers age, we are ill-equipped to care for the increasing number of Alzheimer's patients. Becoming a full-time caregiver for someone who is unable to perform the smallest task takes its toll even on a young person. With the disintegration of the nuclear family, adult children might not be able to move as I did. And there is the nasty little problem of money. My sister was fortunate to be able to live in a top-notch facility. Sadly, she is the exception. One of the most daunting challenges facing researchers today is finding a cure. I thank Lisa Genova for writing an informative, no-holds-barred book about a disease everyone fears. Still Alice does not romanticize dementia as other books, such as The Notebook, have done.
S**E
A moving novel about a dread disease
The story of Alice Howland, as written by Lisa Genova in Still Alice, has been explained by other reviewers so I'll keep my synopsis short. The novel is about an eminent psychology professor at Harvard who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. She struggles through the minor forgetfulness and disorientation of the early stages, gets diagnosed, and experiences worsening symptoms as her life disintegrates by degree. Her husband, also a PhD professor and researcher at Harvard, finds it difficult to cope with her disease while still maintaining his stature and work ethic. Her adult children, while supportive, have their own self-absorbed lives to live. And the administrators at Harvard, rightfully so, cannot allow her to continue in her current job when it becomes apparent that her teaching skills have declined. Her once brilliant worldwide lectures have become less than expert and not representative of Harvard standards. And she is deemed incapable of continuing her research programs. We experience all this deterioration from Alice's viewpoint, instead of as an outside observer, as most stories are told. And we suffer along with her. The destruction of brain process is visible from the outside but Genova takes us to the internal devastation where portions of the brain responsible for cognition and awareness are no longer accessible. People in advanced stages of dementia cannot understand or verbalize such decimation so the author presents Alice's view by using early-onset as a tracking vehicle to gain the point of view while cognitive recognition is still available in her. I felt uncomfortable with the suddenness of the Alzheimer's diagnosis on Alice, thinking it normally took more time for the disease to be uncovered. The author, in an interview at book's end, apparently reading my mind, stated she gave Alice a rapid path to diagnosis to get the book moving and to keep it to a reasonable length. She also mentioned the need to include suicidal thoughts occurring in Alice that, although somewhat controversial in public mindset, has occurred in virtually every person with early-onset under the age of sixty five that the author knows. I found it interesting that symptoms in an early-onset victim's life that get assimilated and adjusted to, seem to always change at a later time creating more problems to be dealt with. An insufferable life just starts to be tolerable when new obstacles appear, creating a sense of hopelessness. To me, this gradual descent into despair is a very frightening aspect of Alzheimer's This book is brilliant. It is written by an academic about events in the lives of academics so, as expected, there is abundant use of scientific and medical jargon. However, Dr. Genova is careful to use professional language where appropriate and to write for the rest of us in the overall context of her story. I actually found it enjoyable to delve into some of the terms and studies she included to find out more about them. Dr. Lisa Genova holds a Ph.D. from Harvard in neuroscience. She is a columnist for the National Alzheimer's Association and a recognized neurology expert who is also a public speaker on Alzheimer's issues. She seems to focus on fictional stories that deal with brain disorders. Here we have early-onset Alzheimer's. Her new book, Left Neglected, is about a fast-living professional woman who suffers a life-altering brain injury in an automobile accident. And still to come is a book about childhood autism. Genova makes abundant use of experts in formulating her story line. Her education and academic standing gives her uncommon access to other brilliant minds. She has the ability and credentials to ask the right questions in the right professional language and to understand the clinically formed answers. She is then able to apply the knowledge she gains to form the thought processes and actions of those suffering from the disabling disorder into clear layman prose. She also states in her interview that she wanted to create a story that was "a truthful and respectful depiction of life with Alzheimer's," and she wanted the story to be from the point of view of the victim rather than the caregiver. Dr. Genova, you have done so magnificently.
Y**N
Took Me By Surprise!
This book club pick for May is actually a lot more engaging than I expected it to be. Initially a bit turned off by what promised to be a depressing storyline, my curiosity piqued after learning that Genova initially self-published this popular novel before landing a contract with Simon & Schuster. Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease comes to terrifying life in Genova's debut. Alice is almost immediately relatable, and only becomes more and more sympathetic as the book (and her disease) progresses. She makes a few early decisions that did make me not like her all the time, but this only adds to the stark realism that is so prominent throughout the book. The authenticity in which Genova captures Alice's disease and symptoms makes this one of the more genuinely horrific novels - more so than the many titles actually intended to terrify their readers. For those with even a hint of hypochondria, this may be a bit much to handle, as it easy to self-diagnose yourself with this tragic illness. As Alice becomes more likable in the novel, her husband becomes even less so. Her husband's attitude throughout the novel, though certainly realistic, at times takes on an almost sinister edge to his selfishness. Almost entirely from Alice's perspective, the one rather abrupt and jarring scene from John's point of view does little to redeem him. But all of Genova's male characters have a less solid presence than Alice and the other female characters. It is an interesting book and breathes a fascinating perspective on this terrible disease. And perhaps most importantly, the way the POV is handled keeps this from being an overly sappy and sentimental novel. Yes, it is terrifying, tragic and tearjerking, but it actually is not as depressing as I feared it would be. I think it will definitely inspire a lot of interesting discussion with my book club! It is definitely one of the better picks we have had in a few months!
K**M
My Friend Alice
Every once in a while I read a book that I love so much I want to buy it for everyone I know. Does that happen to you? Well, that's how I felt when I finished reading "Still Alice." I just loved it! And that, frankly, surprised me. A book about Alzheimer's disease is one that I would expect to learn from but certainly not enjoy. Turns out, this book is unforgettable. "Still Alice" is a novel about a 50-year old woman who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. Alice experiences what most of us do as we get older -- we start to forget things. Alice begins to wonder: Is it just aging? Stress? Not enough sleep? Menopause? When Alice gets lost during a routine jog in her neighborhood, she recognizes there is something more going on and decides to see her doctor. Alzheimer's was clearly not her first guess. I became fast friends with Alice. She took me by the hand and lead me down the dark and winding path into dementia. It's a fascinating journey, and I found myself standing right alongside Alice, taking each and every neurological test, wishing I could do something to help her as her daily life became such a struggle. Yes, I'm 50 and my forgetfulness can be unnerving at times -- being able to tap into that emotion made Alice's descent even more terrifying. But the dividing line between common forgetfulness and Alzheimer's disease became abundantly clear to me as I watched Alice sink deeper into the disease. Spending time with Alice was both upsetting and mesmerizing. Each day the challenges became greater -- from getting lost in her own home to not recognizing her own children. I was truly pained for my friend Alice. Lisa Genova, the author of "Still Alice", has a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard. Her decision to make her fictional Alice a Harvard professor of psychology and linguistics might tempt readers to think this is autobiographical. But Genova was apparently motivated to write this book because her grandmother suffered from Alzheimer's, and Lisa simply utilized her writing talent, making the story more accessible by using familiar settings and themes. Usually books about Alzheimer's are written in either a clinical way or from the point of view of the caregiver, but I think Lisa's decision to make this story a work of fiction was inspired and succeeds brilliantly. She lets us feel what it's like to have the disease, and we learn, right along with Alice, her husband and three grown kids, what Alzheimer's is all about, how deeply it changes not just the sufferer but the entire world to which she's connected. "Still Alice" is about more than the destruction of a mind. It's a lesson in how to live life fully. Alice taught me about bravery. She taught me how to be a better friend. As her yesterdays slipped away from her and her tomorrows became more uncertain, Alice taught me to never forget that life is here right now in this moment.
K**N
Brilliant novel; a real page turner.
**REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS** In the poignant novel, Still Alice, written by Lisa Genova, the main character Alice Howland is given the devastating diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s disease and struggles to cope with the changes that ensue. In her early fifties, Alice begins to experience memory loss and confusion; initially, she believes her symptoms are as a result of Menopause or stress from her demanding position as a psychology professor at Harvard University. As her symptoms become more persistent, she seeks the professional opinion of her doctor in hopes of finding a solution to her problem. After a considerable amount of testing, the doctor informs Alice of her diagnosis- Alzheimer’s. From that point on, Alice’s life is changed forever. One of the most memorable passages in the book occurred during June 2005; at this point, Alice’s Alzheimer’s had progressed quite extensively. When Alice was aimlessly clicking icons on her computer, she stumbled upon the “Butterfly” file that she had made for herself when she was still early on in her diagnosis. In the file, she discovers a letter that she wrote and reads it in a state of bewilderment. In the letter, she tells herself about the great and successful life she had lead and the tragic disease that had stolen her precious time. The reader is aware of Alice’s state of mind when she states, “You have lost too much of yourself, too much of what you love, and you are not living the life you want to live.” (p.271) At the end of the letter, Alice tells herself to do an unthinkable deed- to commit suicide. Alice speaks of a bottle that is stashed in the back of her bedroom drawer and says, “There are a lot of pills in that bottle. Swallow all of them with a big glass of water. Make sure you swallow all of them. Then, get in bed and go to sleep.” (p. 271). As Alice rummages through the contents of her drawer, she is interrupted by John who was standing in the doorway observing her behavior. John proceeds to give Alice her daily medications- not the pills that Alice was searching for. As Alice takes her medications, she feels a sense of sadness and pride but does not understand why she feels this way. If John had not come into the room, it is possible that Alice would have been capable of killing herself. While I read Alice’s letter and understood what she had intended to do to herself, I could not help but feel her frustration and hopelessness; the feeling her letter evoked in me was startling, as I feel like I had switched into Alice’s body for a brief minute. This novel was difficult to read at times due to how Alice’s disease somewhat relates to my personal life. I worked as a caregiver/medication technician at a senior assisted living home that specialized in memory care, or care for individuals with Alzheimer’s/Dementia. Genova captured the setting of a nursing facility perfectly with the details of the number keypad for doors, spacious hallways for wandering around, and the random encounters with residents who falsely accuse you of doing something. While Alice was receiving the tour, I visualized myself showing Alice around the facility, as the setting is similar to where I had worked. Although the senior home I was associated with takes good care of the residents, I would tell Alice to hire a personal caregiver and not put herself into this type of home. I find too often that some families would selfishly put their loved one into this home and seldom visit. I was pleased upon reading the outcome that Alice was not only still surrounded and supported by her family but was ultimately given a personal caregiver. I was immediately attracted to reading Still Alice, as the subject matter of Alzheimer’s is something that interests me. I want to know more about the disease process of Alzheimer’s and Genova did an incredible job of emotionally investing the reader into Alice’s character. I could not stop feeling Alice’s frustration, anger, sadness, and confusion. I give this novel a 10/10 rating and would recommend this novel to everyone. I was captivated and immersed into the book and actually read it all in one day. While Alice Howland is fictional and strictly exists only on paper, I cannot ignore how the essence of her life story reverberates in the back of my mind.
C**C
Must read!
Everyone who is exposed to Alzheimer’s should read this. What an interesting perspective!! As I deal with this with a family member, it makes my heart hurt even more.
A**R
Great book! Printing error.
Amazing book, especially if you know someone with Alzheimer's! The story started out a bit slow. But then I suddenly found myself unable to put it down! Genova's portrayal of the inner struggle between remembering and forgetting was life changing for me. The loss of the star isn't because of the story, but because my copy has a random 20 pages reprinted later in the book. Someone in editing made a big error!
T**.
Well written, well researched, very poignant.
Alice Howland was a highly esteemed psychology professor at Harvard. At 50 years old, she was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s, and was informed the disease was progressive, and there was no cure. This is a work of fiction, but the author, Lisa Genova, has a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard, and is very well researched. At first, when she started forgetting things, Alice thought she was just tired or overworked. However, the day she got lost while running in the neighborhood she’d lived in for many years, was the day she knew that getting a couple more hours of sleep was not going to fix the problem. Eventually the disease progressed enough that she didn’t know where the bathroom was in her own house. Eventually she didn’t recognize her own children. Eventually, she lost herself. No happy ending here. I’m giving this book five stars. It’s interesting, informative, well written, and poignant. It’s also sad, depressing, and scary. (Just telling it like it is.) I highly recommend it, but I understand those who prefer to avoid the subject. I bought “Still Alice” five years ago, but had conflicting feelings about reading it. It wasn’t until this year that I finally decided it was time. As it happens, I read the book shortly before my 90-year-old father, who suffered from dementia, died. He lived the last fifteen years of his life in a memory care facility. It was so hard watching him lose his memory; not know where he was or why he was there. He’d ask the same questions over and over and over. He was confused and scared. Dementia is a cruel and scary disease. As I read Still Alice, I thought of my dad and everything he was going through. I was also thinking about myself. Me. Down the road. My dad and I were born 20 years apart. Is this what I have to look forward to in a few years? Every time I can’t find what I did with my keys, or my phone, or my Kindle, I wonder… Five stars.
C**.
Très bien écrit
Belle histoire sur la maladie d’alzheimer télé desarroi qu’elle provoque
E**R
Still Alice: Book Review. Read more at: https://estherbookblog.wordpress.com/
Still Alice – Lisa Genova I found it hard to put this book down; Still Alice is at once a compelling piece of fiction and a moving portrayal of a woman living with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. It was originally a self-published novel and has had extraordinary success. Recommended by the Alzheimer’s Association and now a critically-acclaimed film starring Julianne Moore, Still Alice portrays a way of life that is usually left unheard. The novel is written in first-person from the perspective of the sufferer which makes it all the more relatable and insightful. Alice is not an eighty-year-old stereotypical Alzheimer’s patient either, she is fifty years old and still in the heights of her career. The reader understands the world through Alice’s eyes – when she first realises she is having memory and orientation problems, to when she is diagnosed, to when she can no longer remember the names of her children. We see the good days and the bad days; we are confused when Alice sees a black hole in front of the door (which she later realises is only the doormat), we are frustrated when she can no longer go running alone and we are sad when her daughters are identified only as “the mother” and “the actress”. The narrative takes on her changing voice – at first, she has the precision of a University Psychology Professor but later on, words are generic and places become vague. For example, children in the park are “medium-sized” and she recognises her husband as: “the man who owned the house” who “was reading a book and drinking a drink”. We witness Alice’s moments of breakdown and her consideration of suicide, as well as her joy when she manages to start a small group of other younger Alzheimer’s sufferers so they can support one another: “They laughed and cried over stories of lost keys, lost thoughts, and lost life dreams. Alice felt unedited and truly heard. She felt normal.” Towards the end, even being part of the group is a struggle. She loses connections with others but also with herself. Alice declares “I miss myself” when she realises she can no longer understand a book she once wrote: “This thick book with the shiny blue cover represented so much of what she used to be”. We see the destructive reality of the disease and its fateful nature – having the relevant gene guarantees having the disease; a disease with no cure. Alice articulates this one-sided battle: “This disease will not be bargained with. I can’t offer it the names of the United States presidents in exchange for my children. I can’t give it the names of the state capitals and keep the memories of my husband”. She is powerless to Alzheimer’s but she resists its power to make her life meaningless - Alice is worthy of admiration. She can laugh at herself when she make ridiculous mistakes, she can speak at a conference, she can organise a support group. She also accepts her diagnosis, more so than her husband who for a long time looks for a second opinion, an alternative or a cure. Towards the end of the novel, Alice can no longer do her job, recognize her friends, find her way home or keep track of conversations. Yet, as she movingly points out in her speech at the Annual Dementia Care Conference, this does not mean that her life does not matter: “My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. Some tomorrow soon, I’ll forget that I stood before you and gave this speech. But just because I’ll forget it some tomorrow doesn’t mean I didn’t live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn’t mean that today didn’t matter.” This book forces us to revaluate what is important in life and not to take for granted the little comforts we have that usually go unnoticed – the ability to walk around the neighbourhood, to read a book, to plan ahead, to share memories with our families. It also draws attention to the flaws of her family and the reader’s own flaws. And we are reminded that memory is never infallible: “even biographies not saturated with disease were vulnerable to holes and distortions”. All in all, Still Alice is well worth a read – as a good story, as a book that will make you both laugh and cry and as a challenging insight into the world of dementia from someone who is living with the disease and young enough to understand how this will change her life and the lives of her family.
K**R
Heartbreaking
“Heartbreaking” – I rarely use that word to describe a book. I used to associate it with tawdry romance in the style of Twilight-novels and made it an art-form to avoid books that had been classified as “heartbreaking”. I’m not that kind of woman. Overdramatized romance is something that is sure to drive me away over the course of a few scenes. In the case of Lisa Genova’s brilliant debut novel “Still Alice”, however, I am at a loss for a better and more concise description of her work. I started crying when I was one third into the novel and couldn’t stop until I reached the last chapter, and I assure you: Only very few of my tears were shed over the pleasantly unobtrusive love story that was hidden on the pages of “Still Alice”. Alice Howland is a distinguished professor of psychology at Harvard. She is a luminary in her field, a great teacher, a not-so-easy mother (at least not on the daughter that has chosen a path offside higher education), a patient and understanding wife to a similarly gifted professor of cellular biology, a woman in excellent physical shape for her age. Her life is organized around business trips to conferences all over the world, lectures, research, and her family. When she turns fifty, odd incidences accumulate in her every-day-life: she contemporarily loses single words, misplaces the occasional item, gets lost while running in a place she has known for over twenty years. Alice is worried. She consults a doctor, various hypothesis come up: menopause, stress, sleep deprivation. None of these actually applies to Alice. Her slip-ups – both in language and memory – worsen. She seeks the help of a neurologist and within a few months is confronted with an unchallengeable diagnosis: Early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. “Still Alice” tells the story of Alice Howland being disassembled by her disease. Over the course of a semester, she is not able to teach anymore, doing research follows swift. She laves Harvard and feels aloof from her life. Her family supports her best as they can. Nevertheless, Alice’s mind deteriorates. She feels outcast of her former society: Pretty much all of her recent colleagues avoid her, she’s not taking part in discussions any more. The day comes when she sees her acting daughter in a play and cannot place herself in any relation to her. She’s not able to read novels, later watch movies, take part in a conversation. Her perception fails her repeatedly. Alice dissolves into a string of failures of both memory and language. The overwhelming emotional power of “Still Alice” stems from Lisa Genova’s decision to let Alice herself be the narrator of her story. That is a bold choice and a complicated one: Alice’s life is disintegrating into incoherent fragments; a story told by her is likely to be subject to the same fate. Is such an approach working? It is. It is the mixture of brutally honest personal story-telling and the reader’s memory, which is – on contrast to Alice’s – just working fine, that makes “Still Alice” an almost unbearable read. I could list two dozen brilliant scenes, where I found myself nodding and just thinking: Exactly, but I will refrain from that and just point out a few to you: Alice frantically searching her own house for the bathroom but ending up in the same storeroom over and over again, finally starting to cry in frustration and peeing herself; Alice not recognizing a black rug on the floor, thinking it is a hole in the ground and sceptically avoiding it the whole time; Alice forgetting about the death of her mother and sister and observing that her husband stays suspiciously calm when telling her that they passed away, concluding to herself: “He’s known that for a long time and did not tell me – I cannot trust him.”; Alice taking part in a lunch seminar at Harvard for one of the last times, making a very bright remark and being admired for it by the whole audience, then forgetting about it, seeing the slide again that triggered the remark in the first place, repeating it and earning no approval for her thought whatsoever, feeling left out and superfluous. “Still Alice” is a 400-page-long aggregation of such and similar scenes, depicting the collapse of an extraordinary life. It forces you to see and experience the world as Alice Howland, and thus helps you to understand the hell that early-stage Alzheimer’s is for the concerned people. How can you endure this torture? By Alice being an exceptionally amiable narrator; by some small happy-ends being woven into the story; and by Lisa Genova never letting her tone of narration slip up into the realms of the melodramatic or overly philosophical, which would have been pretty easyy because, hell yes: Being confronted with Alzheimer’s disease raises a whole bunch of uncomfortable and pretty fundamental questions. But Genova leaves it to the reader to identify these questions and ponder about them. This, for me, is one of the most fundamental characteristics of literature, or any other form of art in general. Some words about Genova’s dealing with the formal elements of a novel: Plot: Straight-forward. Genova does not venture into any kind of literary experiments, making “Still Alice” a smooth and fast-paced read that, for me, was almost impossible to put away. Characters: Three-dimensional in every aspect. Neither Alice nor her disease are treated in a black-and-white fashion. The impact of her diagnosis on her family is portrayed authentic. Genova’s cast behaves deeply human and does not mask any reaction or feeling for the sake of the reader’s well-being. I repeat: A bold choice that will not do for everyone. Storytelling: Straight-forward and adequate for the chosen topic. Genova could easily have used different point of views, she could have gone for more abstract and complicated schemes of storytelling, but she didn’t. She stays with Alice for almost the whole novel, and that is what gets to you. I especially admired one scene at the very end of the book: Alice is surrounded by “women” and “men”, none of them have a face or a name. For a few paragraphs, the reader is as lost as Alice: Who are these people? What do they want? Why are they talking to Alice? Did I, the reader, miss something important earlier on? It’s just a very short scene and maybe it has another impact on another reader, but for me it worked perfectly. There’s a lot more of similar scenes found in “Still Alice”, small scenes each of them, but each also triggering a powerful emotional response. Linguistic Style: Fluent, well readable, appropriate. Although Lisa Genova studied neurosciences at Harvard herself, her expert knowledge never interferes with her story; every of the few technical terms is explained sufficiently, lecturing never occurs. “Still Alice” is about Alice and not about the neurobiological background of her disease. Conclusion: “Still Alice” is one of the best books I ever read and definitely the one that shook me up the most. However, I have a weakness for psychologically sound character studies, whereas I am not at all interested in philosophical literature – leave the thinking to me, just push me head over heels into a new set of questions, the more human, the better. I like a good story about interesting people, I like to be confronted with the dark and usually hushed-up parts of humanity, and all of this is provided by Lisa Genova’s “Still Alice”. If you liked movies such as “A beautiful mind” or “Girl, interrupted”, read this novel. If you didn’t – still give it a try. Dementia, much like cancer, is something that everybody has to deal with at some point. It can’t hurt to be educated about it.
S**Y
A Must Read
Informative, well written, very evidence based, and a must read for everyone who knows someone suffering from dementia. Poignant and a must read for a general understanding of how debilitating this disease is and yet how people rise to the challenge of supporting and managing this disease.
V**I
Buena lectura
Este libro me ha encantado, cómo la autora trata de plasmar desde diferentes puntos de vista la enfermedad del Alzheimer. Y lo más importante, cómo lo plasma desde el punto de vista de la protagonista.
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