Still Alice, by Lisa Genova

I'm going out of order here--I've read 2 books now without blogging, but I just finished this 3rd, and it's so damn good I had to write about it immediately.

It's a story about Alzheimer's, told from the point of view of someone suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's dementia. Alice is a Harvard professor, married to a scientist, mother to 3 very smart and successful children. Watching her mind deteriorate is fascinating and heart-breaking. As her version of things gets muddier and muddier, it's almost a puzzle to figure out what's going on.

At the last book club meeting, Wendy asked us to bring in a list of books we'd recommend to our daughters, or mothers, or other significant women in our lives, and I couldn't think of any. I wish I had read this book before then!! Because Alice's relationship with her family changes as her disease progresses, especially with her youngest daughter, and the passage where she not only accepts her daughter's path in life but offers suggestions of how to--not just be more successful, like the old Alice would have cared about--but to enjoy her life and the experience, that passage was just awesome. I think mothers and daughters--shit, everyone--could learn from that. Another reason this book is perfect for recommending to the women in her life? Mom and I were reading it at nearly the same time, and several times today I would stop reading and say "hey, did you read this part? wasn't that sad?!"

I hate that I'm not a better writer, because I feel like I can't do this book justice! I hate just havign to jump from subject to subject because I can never link my thoughts up.

My favorite element in the book: Shortly after being diagnosed, Alice starts to realize how much she's already affected. She starts thinking about how much worse it's going to get, about how much of a burden she's going to be on her family. She decides that she needs to stop it before it gets too bad, but she wants to try to enjoy as much as she can while she can, so she comes up with a plan: she sets an alarm on her Blackberry to go off every morning. A message will pop up, asking her 5 questions, and it includes a set of instructions that she is to follow if she can't answer the questions. This is her suicide plan. Up there, where I mentioned having to figure out what was going on through her confusion? You realize when she's already slipped a lot that her husband has discovered her plan, and to witness HIS suffering through her dementia is something I can't even describe. You just HAVE to read this book.

Note: I started reading this book this morning, around 10. I did not read it continuously--we went shopping and ate, and all that, but it's midnight and I'm finished with it already. This book is addicting!