A beautiful, tragic reality

Other than the wonderfully written tragedy of Alzheimer's and Alice, the narrator had a beautiful, smooth voice to listen to.

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3 people found this helpful

A clear, empathetic window into this condition

The story was great. Gave me understanding and insight into the nature of this disease and raised lots of questions/debates about medical assisted or otherwise death or holding on to the life you have….

The author narrated and probably shouldn’t have. I almost gave up to just read the book instead because I found it so distractingly flat at first, but I kept going and the story was enough to get me through in the end.

Definitely a must read, but if you have time, maybe read the physical book. If you don’t, push through with the audiobook. It’s worthwhile.

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Loved it!

If I had anything negative to say, it would be that I didn't want it to end. The story was beautiful and Lisa Genova has the perfect voice for it.

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Arrogant Intellect Crashes to Earth

The story, itself, is good. Compelling. Sadly, however, I found myself disliking PROFESSOR Alice Howland. She was too INTO herself. HER accomplishments, I'm NOT going to be popular with this opinion, but Alzheimer's actually HUMANIZED this self-congratulatory linguistics mastermind, who was also such a whiney uber feminist, it makes me wonder WHY she even got married, let alone had kids.

Which brings me to poor Lydia. The youngest daughter Alice couldn't approve of because she wasn't doing what would make ALICE proud. She was her own person. (God forbid) I love the girl's spunk, though. If I had written the story, I would have had Lydia issue an ultimatum.

"Mom, I'm 22. A legal adult, whatever you might believe. If you cannot tolerate my choices. If we are going to get into an argument, every time you come here, because you need to be right, then maybe you should stop coming to visit. It's a waste of time. Your 'love' for me is conditioned on what YOU want. What would make YOU proud. Well, I'm going to do what I want. If you don't care to hear that then don't waste your time or mine. Just stay away." Even better, I wish Lydia had been able to over-hear her mother tell her father NOT to support her acting class. In Lydia's place, I would have blocked Alice from my phone and spent Christmas day at the Airport, waiting for a return flight to Los Angeles, NEVER to see or speak to Alice Howland again.

There's some narration in chapter one that made Alice sound like she HAD to have her kids, just to prove a point about how she, as a WOMAN, could do ten things at one time. Thankfully, the first two kids lived up to what SHE wanted, but damn that Lydia for being an individual!

I found myself being much more tolerant of Alice with Alzheimer's since she she was no longer enamored of the intellect she was losing. She mourned her former genius, and yet, to my surprise, she found she would miss the family her Alzheimer's-eroded memory was taking from her. Something that WASN'T about Alice.

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Heartbreaking novel about Altzheimer's

This was a very hard book to read, not in that it was difficult to read but rather that the impact of the book was very hard to take. If you've read "Flowers for Algernon" and remember Algernon at the peak of his intelligence realizing that it's all slipping away, and watching his slow decline -- this book reminded me of that. It starts as Alice Howland, a brilliant 50-year-old cognitive psychology professor at Harvard, notices she's experiencing some odd lapses in memory. She is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's Disease, and the book follows the slow decline of her memory as well as the efforts of herself and her family to come to grips with the diagnosis and try to fight a disease for which there really is no way to fight back.

It's an insightful, painful, frightening read and does an excellent job of portraying how the disease affects Alice's memory over time. At what point does she stop being Alice? She wonders to herself: "Is the part of my brain that's responsible for my unique 'me-ness' vulnerable to this disease? Or is my identity something that transcends neurons, proteins, and defective molecules of DNA? Is my soul and spirit immune to the ravages of Alzheimer's?"

This is not an easy read, especially if you've ever seen this disease affecting a loved one. But it's very thought provoking and compassionately written, by an author who clearly knows the subject inside and out.

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1 person found this helpful

Wow. Thanks

Wow

The movie “moved” me

I had read many comments in various sites that the book was even better as it allowed us to hear more of what Alice is thinking!!

As I was not able to read Lisa Geneva’s printed word (I have EOD) I subscribed and got the Audiobook last night

Her writing reaches into Alice’s mind, thoughts and emotions so exactly!! I know cause Alice expressed exactly how I too feel at times but didn’t have the correct words to express to others. Now I do!!

Thanks. Merci

Lisa!!

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still Alice

previously submitted a review. not sure why your system disregarded my review so am not doing again.

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Tragic story told in the Winnie The Pooh style

The book describes the drama unraveling around a Harvard professor falling into dimentia in her early fifties. While the subject is interesting and very important the story is written in a simplified children-book style. Adding a monotonous narration to the whole experience made me want to fast forward to the end and be done with it.

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