"What if every mempry you've ever had will be erased from your mind, and you have no choice but to carry on... powerless to stop it?Alice Howland is proud of the life she worked so hard to build. At fifty years old, she's a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and a world-renowned expert in linguistics with a successful husband and three grown children. When she begins to grow disoriented and forgetful, a tragic diagnosis changes her life-- and her relationship with her family and the world-- forever.
At once beautiful and terrifying, the extraordinary debut novel by Lisa Genova is a moving and vivid depiction of life with early-onset Alzheimer's disease that is as compelling as A Beautiful Mind and as unforgettable as Ordinary People."
I've never read A Beautiful Mind or Ordinary People, but this was a spectacular novel just the same. I think I might just read other books by Lisa Genova!
It's been a while since I've read (listened to) a book about mental illness. This might sound really twisted, but those are some of my personal favorites-- I love delving into the human psyche!
Before reading (listening) to this book, I knew very little about Alzheimer's. I knew that it was something that had something to do with losing your memory. What's nice about this book is you don't necessarily have to know anything about this disease in order to read (or listen to) this book.
Still Alice was a bit of an emotional roller coaster throughout the book. From the beginning when she was upset that one of her daughters wanted to be an actor instead of going to college to feeling Alice's frustration and anguish when she couldn't remember where anything was.
It's been a little while since a book has coaxed an outward reaction from me to what was happening in the book. Towards the end, I was screaming because of what was happening and where it looked like the story was going to go.
As tragic as this disease is, I thought it was really neat to see how this disease brought Alice and her family (and even a community of people outside of her family) together as a support system and as people who were constantly getting to know each other.
Still Alice was a beautiful novel that hooks you in and doesn't let you go until it ends. I give this novel:
--Jude
Great review, sounds like a good book, thanks for sharing.
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