Book Review: Still Alice a novel by Lisa Genova

This fictional book has 292 pages.  It is Lisa Genova’s first novel. Lisa also holds   a      Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard University.  She is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer’s Association.

This is a story of a fifty year old woman named Alice who has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.  Alice is a very successful psychology professor at Harvard when she starts experiencing moments of forgetfulness and confusion.

I was very moved in the story over the  agony that Alice experiences when first diagnosed with this disease.  Alice believes that Alzheimer’s  is worse than cancer.  With cancer there is an enemy that you can fight, but with Alzheimer’s there just the inevitable loss of one’s mind.

I could feel the pain that Alice experiences over finding the right time to tell her husband that she has Alzheimer’s.  Alice knows that her husband loves her for her mind and wonders if he could love her this part of her that makes up her thoughts, feelings and person.  This is such agony for Alice that she contemplates suicide.

Before reading this book, I did not really understand much about Alzheimer’s disease.  I knew it was a form of dementia but I did not really understand what all that might entail.   I knew that a person with Alzheimer’s might forget a person and things but I did not realize that it also affects perception.  The part of the book that most illustrates this is when Alice thinks that there is a hole in front of the front door but in reality it is just the rug.

Toward the end of the book it was sad when the family was discussing Alice as if she was not present and Alice was only vaguely aware that her loved ones were discussing her.

I would recommend this book very highly to others to read.