Still Alice in Around the Year in 52 Books

Feb 22, 2015 Maryam rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

This is a book that everybody should read,because it has important facts about Alzheimer's Disease. Facts that we should know.

In her interview with different people Liza Genova answered the question "what inspired you to write Still Alice" as this :

While I was in graduate school, we discovered that my grandmother had Alzheimer disease. She was in her mid-eighties at the time, and she'd probably been living with the disease for a while. It's sort of accepted in our culture that 80-year-olds forge

This is a book that everybody should read,because it has important facts about Alzheimer's Disease. Facts that we should know.

In her interview with different people Liza Genova answered the question "what inspired you to write Still Alice" as this :

While I was in graduate school, we discovered that my grandmother had Alzheimer disease. She was in her mid-eighties at the time, and she'd probably been living with the disease for a while. It's sort of accepted in our culture that 80-year-olds forget things. My grandfather had died, and she was living alone. I think she, her children, and grandchildren looked the other way for a while. So by the time we figured out that she had Alzheimer's, she was pretty far along in the disease. I was around a lot while she was sick and being cared for. She has nine children and a lot of grandchildren. We cared for her, but there was little we could do but watch this disease systematically disassemble the woman I knew as my grandmother. She didn't know her kids' names. She didn't even remember that she had any children. She didn't know where she lived. She couldn't remember to go to the bathroom when she needed to. I would watch her looking at her own face in the mirror and not understanding the image she saw reflected back. She would care for these little plastic dolls as if they were real babies. It was heartbreaking.

At the same time, as a neuroscientist I found it fascinating. We could see the results of the destruction of her brain, and I wondered about the events that were going on inside—the molecular mechanisms that had gone wrong to produce these deficits. I wondered what it must feel like when those parts of the brain that house your personal history—your sense of self and identity—start to deteriorate. What sort of compensatory mechanisms might be going on? And what does it feel like to go through that? Unfortunately, my grandmother was too far along in the disease to be able to communicate what was going on. I thought it would be interesting to talk to someone about his or her own Alzheimer's who is at the very beginning stages. I understood at the time that this wouldn't be a conversation with someone in their eighties. This would be someone with early onset Alzheimer's. And to my knowledge, the story of people with early onset AD hadn't really been told.

from EARLY ONSET FAMILIAL AD

and this exactly why this book should be read. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

May 24, 2015 Sue rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I love books that "show" instead of "tell". So much more powerful that way. Alice is a professor of linguistics at Harvard and is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's at the age of 50. Watching her slowly unravel and lose the parts of herself that meant the most to her was heart-breaking. Told from her perspective, you see the confusion, the fear, the humiliation, the desolation. You wonder why her children and husband aren't doing more. But then you realize you don't know what they're doing. ...more

Like · see review

Jun 11, 2014 Hilary rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: library_books, novels, book_club, contemporary_realism

A really interesting and eye-opening look at Alzheimer's. A quick and easy read from the perspective of language, but not from the perspective of what it would be like to have this disease. I learned a lot. ...more

Like · see review

Jan 22, 2012 Lucinda rated it it was amazing

This was a hard book for me to read as my Nana had Alzheimer's and i am terrified of getting it myself. I lived at my Nana's house as a teenager and witnessed the onset of the disease, though we didn't recognize it at the time - not until it got much worse.
This book allowed me to gain insight into the progression from the sufferers point of view and I found it fascinating and disturbing at the same time. ...more

Like · see review

Sep 30, 2010 Clare rated it really liked it

The author's credentials resulted in a very plausible read. We move right along with Alice as her Alzheimer's progresses. I learned much and felt empathy for Alice, too. ...more

Like · see review