Oh, this was a rough book. It’s good, really really good, but difficult to read because you’re basically in the mind of a highly intelligent woman as she begins to slowly lose that mind. She’s aware of everything most of the time, and can’t do anything to stop it. It’s also scary to consider that this could happen not only to you, but to your loved ones as well. I spent a lot of time reading this and thinking, what if? “Her ability to use […]
Legitimate Family Drama
I read and reviewed Still Alice late last year, so a few days back Goodreads notified me that Ms. Genova had a new novel coming out this month. Inside the O’Briens tells the story of the O’Brien family and how they deal with the patriarch’s diagnosis with Huntington’s Disease. The book is primarily told from patriarch Joe’s perspective, a forty-something police officer in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston. He starts to develop symptoms and gets tested, not realizing that his mother had died of the […]
Oscar Bait
I heard about Still Alice throughout Julianne Moore’s Academy Awards campaign. I’ve always liked to read the books movies (particularly critcally acclaimed movies) are based on- even if I never get around to watching the final film. Still Alice is the story of Alice Howland: a happily married, mother of three. She is a professor at Harvard University whose story is told as her memory declines following an Early Onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis. As her memory fades the narration becomes less focused, the passages shorter and […]
Beautiful and one of the saddest books I’ve read this year
I read Still Alice based on a recommendation from a few friends. An incredibly powerful and moving novel, it impacted me immediately and has stuck with me since. Still Alice is the story of a Harvard psychology professor who finds that she is losing pieces of herself. It’s a sad and moving portrayal of a woman losing the things that defined her. When Alice can’t find her way home on a run through Harvard Square, she knows something is very wrong. Initially, she wonders if it’s menopause or […]
What It’s Like to Forget
I was listening to the radio earlier this week and heard them discussing the movie version of Still Alice, starring Julianne Moore. It sounded interesting, so I started reading it on Thursday, and finished it while at the gym today. The writing was fantastic, the story was interesting and moving, and the small world Ms. Genova created took me in from the first page. Still Alice tells the story of a cognitive psychology Harvard professor who, at age 51, is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. She […]