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Still Alice | 
| Author: Lisa Genova
Publisher: Pocket
Category: Book
Buy New: CDN$ 17.40
as of 9/6/2010 10:17 PDT details
New (1) Used (4) from CDN$ 6.92
Seller: themeirinca
Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 34776
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 337
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1439170045
EAN: 9781439170045
ASIN: 1439170045
Publication Date: December 29, 2009
Availability: Usually ships within 1 - 2 business days
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 45
 Life imitating art...in my own life January 20, 2009
Mary G. Longorio (Eagle Mountain, UT)
50 out of 51 found this review helpful
Alice Howland taught cognitive psychology courses at Harvard for over twenty-five years. Alice and her husband, John authored Molecules to Mind, she published papers, and lectured around the world. Her three children were grown and on their own paths (not that she was very happy about Lydia's choice of acting, but she hadn't given up trying to influence her to go back to real school). Her son Tom was doing well in school, daughter Annie and her husband, Charlie are attorneys trying to conceive a first grandchild.
Facing a busy schedule and travel and everyday stress, Alice isn't concerned when she begins to forget little things, where the keys are, names of acquaintances or a momentary sense of disorientation. After all she is fifty and that is part of menopause. .
A trip to her family doctor to get some suggestions for cognitive memory reinforcement and to see if medication is available does not help. Alice is stunned to learn that she has Early Onset Alzheimer's and that there is not very much available for treatment. Telling her husband and children is even harder to face. Eventually she has to face the loss of her teaching and life's work.
"Still Alice" is Alice's voice as she struggles with the advancement of Alzheimer's. As the disease advances, she is living more in the now, and often hurt by her interpretations of family member's words and actions. She reacts with anger and confusion as her world shifts and becomes more unfamiliar and frightening. Her family also has to deal with their emotions. The realization that their funny, loving accomplished mother and wife is slowly disappearing before their eyes are devastating, and they each react differently. Alice tries to stay aware of what is happening, but has the disease advances her voice becomes quieter and briefer. Lisa Genova has a Ph.D in Neuroscience from Harvard University and works with several Alzheimer's organizations as well as serving as the online columnist for the national Alzheimer's Association. Although "Still Alice" is a work of fiction, it is apparent there is much drawn from real life experiences and observations. Genova has given a voice to a population not usually listened to. The characters are facing uncertainty and struggling with Alice's decent into unknowing. There are moments of hilarity as well as heartbreak. This book will touch anyone who works with dementia patients, or who has a friend or loved one with Alzheimer's. (early 2008)
1/19/2009
Less than a year later finds me, the reviewer, caring for my own father in my home as he succumbs more and more to his organic dementia. We have had to uproot him from his home in Texas to move into our home in Utah where either my husband or I can be with him around the clock. We moved into a house and I have drastically cut back on my work load. I keep looking back to the pages where Alice tries to describe her confusion and tries to frame what she wants from those around her so I can somehow meet those same needs in my Father. I fear I am falling short.....there is so much anger directed at me and my husband for moving him away. We couldn't transfer out jobs down to Texas and survive. Being over fifty we couldn't walk away from careers with tenure and pensions. Between my 7 other siblings there were too many teenagers (too much stress) too many young children (ditto) and a widowed sister looking for a possible husband. Oh, and the inevitable family conflicts. No matter how hard I have tried I feel I am falling short. "It's nothing personal, Mary....I like your brothers more than you" Dad hates it here, it isn't working. "One night I am going to walk right out of here and won't that be a surprise in the morning?' Dad often says the blessing at dinner and is sure to add "Please bless this food especially since Mary has cooked tonight" that is if he can manage to say all that before we all get the giggles and just say "amen". I work with this type patient everyday at my job and I still cannot make it work in my homecare for my own Father. I reread Still Alice as a roadmap. it is my best guide.....though the road is unknown and I feel completely unprepared to travel it. I have no choice I must keep moving on....
Still Alice April 16, 2009
Sharon Williamson (Red Deer, Alberta Canada)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Lisa Genova's first book is both disturbing and educational. Her characters are so true to life you laugh and cry with them while you are learning about Alzheimer's disease. The devastation in Alice's life is phenomenal as her career ends and her role as wife and mother are forever changed when she is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers at 50 years of age. Still Alice is a great read, one that everyone could benefit from reading.
Gripping and enlightening June 17, 2009
MD (Toronto, ON)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
What a great story. A very easy read; couldn't put it down! I have never really put much thought into Alzheimers before, but boy, was this story enlightening. Alice is a lovable, relatable character, with a successful career, a busy but devoted husband, and children each at their own stages of life. When Alzheimers takes over and changes her dynamics with each, it is heartbreaking.
I found myself very sad for Alice and all her family members throughout the novel, and can only imagine what true Alzheimers patients and their families go through. You will leave this book wanting to go and spend time with your loved ones and to cherish every moment, knowing that with a disease like this you can lose it all too easily.
 Great book but where's the ending? February 20, 2010
Book Momma (Victoria, BC CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I thought this was a wonderful book. A real eye opener as to what it must be like to live with Alzheimer's from both sides of the disease. The book was well written, very informative, and the characters were very real and believable.
I was very disappointed though at the ending, or lack there of. It just ends sort of mid sentence. A proper conclusion or at least a lead into another book would have been ok but how this one wrapped up was just weird.
Still Alice February 20, 2010
Carol C. Markowsky (Rossland, BC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I completely related to Alice and her family. My husband has a progressive neurological condition that has profoundly affected his mobility and speech and of course has a major impact on myself and our daughters. It made me think about my own situation on so many different levels that it's hard for me to convert my thoughts into a few words. There were 2 tracks in the book that I kept seeing (we have experienced them as well). One was people's inability or discomfort in relating to her once she was diagnosed - friends and family either told her how sorry they were or talked as if she wasn't present. Her daughter Lydia was able to connect with her. She was successful because she connected with her mother on an emotional level not in a cognitive way. On the last page of the book she asks her mother to listen to her monologue from a play and tell her what she thinks about it, not the story (because she knew she wouldn't be able to comprehend the words) but how it makes her feel emotionally. The second theme I noticed was the references to small moments. The things that mattered to Alice in the end were: walking to work with her husband, eating ice cream, running, smelling her grandchildren. So here comes the lessons we can all learn - be empathetic not sympathetic (saying I'm sorry is not helpful or necessary) and when it comes down to it, the only things that matters are the small moments with the people you are closest to. Maybe if we all try to be more empathetic and in touch with our own emotions we will stop defining ourselves through our work/careers and actually take the time to enjoy the small moments. One more thing, don't be too hard on John for not being more supportive of Alice. He was going through the stages of grief as well - denial, anger, bargining and hopefully he reached the final stage of acceptance. No one really knows how they will react if faced with a similar situation until they're in it.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 45
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