(32) Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Lisa Genova has written a book that gives Stephen King a run for his money for scare factor.

Still Alice is a phenomenal book about a fifty year old woman with early onset Alzheimer's Disease. Alice is just not your average fifty year old woman. She is a Harvard professor of Psychology. She is world renowned in her field and has even a published. But none of that matters when she gets lost jogging a route she has jogged for many years. Her credentials mean nothing when she receives the diagnosis that will change her life.

Still Alice is written from Alice's view point. The early chapters are intelligent and concise, but Alice is very obviously on a downward spiral. Soon she can not even find the bathroom in her own home. Her world has shrunk to her own home with her husband, also a Harvard professor, as her only link to the world she once lived in.

To say that Alzheimer's Disease is a life changing disease is an understatement of monumental proportion. So far I have been lucky enough to not have this disease touch my life in anyway. Still Alice is the first exposure I have had to this horrifying disease. To be honest, now, I am scared to death of it. Knowing that there is nothing I can do to prevent this degenerating, fatal disease is suffocating. Knowing that there is even a slight chance that I, or someone I love, can be reduced to this mental marshmallow, well, it has become my greatest fear.

It has been a long time since I have read a book that has had such an emotional impact on me as Still Alice did. Alice and her story gripped my heart. I found myself tearing up on more than one occasion, my heart ached as if Alice were my own mother. Well, let me just say that I was profoundly moved. Lisa Genova did an outstanding job of putting the reader inside the story. Inside of Alice's shoes. Frankly, it was a frightening place to be. I was very impressed with her way of telling Alice's story. I can see why the book has been so successful and I look forward to reading future works by Lisa Genova.