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A review by rikke_bay
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
emotional
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
5.0
I was planning on giving this book 4 stars... But that was before I'd read the last 100 pages.
This book is amazing! It is so realistic, although I'd never known anyone with Alzheimer. But it FEELS realistic. It is well written. It feels like your a fly on a wall or rather a fly on the innerskull of Alice. I can not believe that such a hard topic as alzheimer can be written so... Lightly? It isn't hard to read, there is a lot of funny moment, but at the same time you feel the pity flow through you, because some of the things Alice do are funny, but we all know the reason behind it, so therefore we are also sad.
It is the sad-feeling that made me give this book five stars. I've never cried so much reading a book! How lonely and incapable she feels, the terror of knowing one day she can not reconize her own children. How hurtful it is for her closest, when she introduces herself to them... It made me cry, bring a box of kleenex!
One thing I didn't like was that the title is 'Still Alice' - indicating that the plot is about having alzheimer and now she has to find a way to still be her old self and find accept and peace with her disease, but I don't feel she ever found that peace. She has clearly accept the fact, but when I read the ending I didn't had a feeling she was STILL Alice. Her children on the other hand, had clearly found peace and accept in the situation, but her husband.... (MAY CONTAIN SPOILER) I never felt John really stood up for her. I know everything is tough, but Alice can feel his grief even though the diagnose has been set for other a year, and I had the feeling he just wanted to escape, and yes - it is a natural feeling. I had just espected that because it is fiction and everything can happen, that he would have found his peace as well. But I guess that's what makes it so realistic.
This book is amazing! It is so realistic, although I'd never known anyone with Alzheimer. But it FEELS realistic. It is well written. It feels like your a fly on a wall or rather a fly on the innerskull of Alice. I can not believe that such a hard topic as alzheimer can be written so... Lightly? It isn't hard to read, there is a lot of funny moment, but at the same time you feel the pity flow through you, because some of the things Alice do are funny, but we all know the reason behind it, so therefore we are also sad.
It is the sad-feeling that made me give this book five stars. I've never cried so much reading a book! How lonely and incapable she feels, the terror of knowing one day she can not reconize her own children. How hurtful it is for her closest, when she introduces herself to them... It made me cry, bring a box of kleenex!
One thing I didn't like was that the title is 'Still Alice' - indicating that the plot is about having alzheimer and now she has to find a way to still be her old self and find accept and peace with her disease, but I don't feel she ever found that peace. She has clearly accept the fact, but when I read the ending I didn't had a feeling she was STILL Alice. Her children on the other hand, had clearly found peace and accept in the situation, but her husband.... (MAY CONTAIN SPOILER) I never felt John really stood up for her. I know everything is tough, but Alice can feel his grief even though the diagnose has been set for other a year, and I had the feeling he just wanted to escape, and yes - it is a natural feeling. I had just espected that because it is fiction and everything can happen, that he would have found his peace as well. But I guess that's what makes it so realistic.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Dementia