Book Review
My sister-in-law recently gifted me with a book called Still Alice.
Before she gave it to me, I had never heard of it. It was even made into a movie starring Juliana Moore.

My mother was diagnosed with Dementia about four years ago (Last month, I shared a very personal piece about ‘losing’ my mom), and we have been on this journey with her ever since. I know that they say by the time a diagnosis is sought, the disease is far already; it has significantly impaired their cognitive abilities.

Still Alice is a compelling debut novel about a 50-year-old woman’s sudden descent into early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. It was written by first-time author Lisa Genova, who holds a Ph. D. in neuroscience from Harvard University. 

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children and a house on the Cape, is a celebrated Harvard professor at the height of her career when she notices a forgetfulness creeping into her life. As confusion starts to cloud her thinking and her memory begins to fail her, she receives a devastating diagnosis: early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Fiercely independent, Alice struggles to maintain her lifestyle and live in the moment, even as her sense of self is being stripped away. In turns heartbreaking, inspiring and terrifying, Still Alice captures in remarkable detail what it’s like to lose your mind literally…

What a read it was. I read it in 4 days; I could not put it down.
If you have been in contact with or lived with an Alzheimer/Dementia patient, you will recognise all the signs and stages this disease takes on.

Only at the end of the book do you realise that it is fiction. All the while, I believed it was a true story because I could identify with the family and the patient so much.

This book gets 5 out of 5 from me.