Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Published by: iUniverse, July 2007
Pages: 292
Status: Read on March 10, 2015

Goodreads Summary:
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 becomes increasingly disoriented and forgetful, a tragic diagnosis changes her life–and her relationship with her family and the world–forever.

My Thoughts:
The book starts with “normal” Alice, you kind of get to know her and her family, like with almost every book. The different thing about this book is that you stay with Alices perspective, no matter how bad her Alzheimers becomes (because yes, she gets Alzheimers). As the book progresses, the disease also progresses, which is noticeable in the writing.
It was heartbreaking to read how Alice had to give up everything because of this disease and to see how the disease gets worse, until she does no longer recognise her husband or children.

I didn’t really know anything about Alzheimers before reading this book. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know any details. I feel like this book will give people insides to how Alzheimers work. But I also feel like this book will also be interesting if you don’t have any interest in Alzheimers.

This book is difficult to put down once you start reading, since you go with Alice on her journey. I started reading this book because there is a movie coming out and I wanted to read the book before I’d see the movie. And I’m glad I did. I haven’t seen the movie yet (it’s coming out tomorrow in the Netherlands) and I don’t know if I will. I think I’ll wait until I can read reviews, because I don’t want to ‘ruin’ my good memories of this book with a bad movie!

“ And I have no control over which yesterdays I keep and which ones get deleted. This disease will not be bargained with. I can’t offer it the names of the US presidents in exchange for the names of my children. I can’t give it the names of state capitals and keep the memories of my husband.
…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 that I didn’t live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn’t mean that today doesn’t matter. ”
– Alice