Still Alice | 
Faces of Alzheimer‘s and those that love them. Xmas 2023.
Faces of Alzheimer‘s and those that love them. Xmas 2023.
Faces of Alzheimer‘s. Almost all of us have known or know someone who has had/has this disease. If not, you will. There is no way to prepare yourself for it when it presents itself. Not with books you‘ve read, documentaries and movies you‘ve watched. I know this because I‘m there. Working in hospice has taught me a lot, and the time spent with my patients who had/have Alzheimer‘s and then Dementia—doesn‘t phase me. I am just there with ⬇️
pickShown: my dad and step mom. I saw the movie adaptation and loved it. I felt the book even more deeply. It was well written, and heart breaking. Many of us love someone who had Alzheimer‘s. If you don‘t know someone yet, you will. Progress is being made in the medical treatment—new drugs are approved, and a vaccine is underway. This book is the story of that same journey. You will feel the sadness, the anger, the frustration, the despair.
Even then, more than a year earlier, there were neurons in her head, not far from her ears,that were being strangled to death, too quietly for her to hear them. Some would argue that things were going so insidiously wrong that the neurons themselves initiated events that would lead to their own destruction. Whether it was molecular murder or cellular suicide, they were unable to warn her of what was happening before they died.
More and more, she was experiencing a growing distance from her self-awareness. Her sense of Alice – what she knew, and understood, what she liked, and disliked, how she felt, and perceived—was also like a soap bubble, ever higher in the sky, and more difficult to identify, with nothing but the thinnest lipid membrane protecting it from popping into thinner air.
Alice watched and listened to the relentless, breaking waves pounding the shore. If it weren‘t for the colossal seawall constructed at the edges of the properties of the million-dollar homes along Shore Road, the ocean would have taken each house in, devouring them all without sympathy or apology. She imagined her Alzheimer‘s like this ocean at Lighthouse Beach—unstoppable, ferocious, destructive. Only there were no seawalls in her brain to
Moonlight reflected off her right wrist. SAFE RETURN was engraved on the front of the flat, two-inch, stainless steel bracelet. A one-eight-hundred number, her identification, and the words Memory Impaired were etched on the reverse side. Her thoughts then rode a series of waves, traveling from unwanted jewelry to her mother‘s butterfly necklace, traversing from there to her plan for suicide, to the books she planned to read, and finally
Alice, answer the following questions:
1. What month is it?
2. Where do you live?
3. Where is your office?
4. When is Anna‘s birthday?
5. How many children do you have?
If you have trouble answering any of these, go to the file named “Butterfly” on your computer and follow the instructions there immediately.
“I can barely breath when I think about it. But we have to think about it. I don‘t know how much longer I have to know you. We need to talk about what‘s going to happen.”
He tipped his glass back, swallowed until there was nothing left, and then sucked a little more from the ice. Then he looked at her with a scared and profound sorrow in his eyes that she‘d never seen before. “I don‘t know if I can.”
"My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment.”
#Makeamemory
#VolumesandVocals
pickHonestly, this book seemed too sentimental and predictable to me. I neglected it for years because I thought I knew what it was about (I did, Alzheimer‘s). But I didn‘t know how moving I would find this, albeit fictitious, perspective from a woman who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer‘s. Alice, a brilliant Harvard professor of linguistics, is a mother of 3 adult children with her husband and coauthor, John. Heartbreaking but life affirming.
pick4⭐️ I first heard about this book when I watched the movie with Julianne Moore a number of years ago. It sort of reminded me of the show This Is Us, which dealt with the Alzheimer‘s of the matriarch of the Pearson clan. It‘s hard to say it was enjoyable because of the topic that was explored, but it was definitely dealt with humanely and was very well written. #2022 #fiction #alzheimers #bookstagram #bookreview #contemporary
Alice sat at her desk in their bedroom distracted by the sounds of John racing through each of the rooms on the first floor.
#firstlinefridays
pickSo I love the movie based on this book, and I‘m glad to finally have read it. Still Alice was a heartfelt and insistently earnest look at the ravages of Alzheimer‘s and I book I won‘t soon forget. The writing was a tad clunky I thought in the early parts, but when it really hit its stride it was something to behold. Highly poignant and deeply affecting, Still Alice is def worth your time. Full review here:
https://youtu.be/X4YU5Ueejuk
pick4.5/5 ?
"My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment." ❤️
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 💔
#personvsillness #conflictedworlds @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
#ConflictedWorlds @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs
#Death
All three of these books deal with death and dying in varying degrees.
#Movie2BookRecs #juliannemoore 8. I just recently read this book. It was an easy read but nothing overwhelmingly good. For some reason, I just couldn‘t see Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin as the lead. I didn‘t watch the movie because I‘m afraid I won‘t enjoy it. But she‘s in the new TV series Lisey‘s Story by Stephen King, so sign me up for that!
pickThis was such an immersive and compelling read that I finished it in 3 days! It‘s been a while since I‘ve read a book that quickly. I appreciated the story being told from the POV of the affected individual. It really provided insights into Alzheimer‘s for me. A hard read but well worth the effort. 5/5⭐️
pickWow! What gem of a book! Both heartbreaking and life affirming, Still Alice tackles some of the most tragic realities of life - when we no longer remember who we are, who we loved; when we no longer matter; when we are robbed of the very essence of why we exist. Are we more than what we can remember? How do we matter bereft of self-awareness and identity? These are some of the questions that this book succinctly posed. But it's a joy to read 👇
pickSuch a great audiobook. So hard to read and so very sad. We have watched my mother-in-law battle dementia for many years now. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
#TropesInAugust A heartbreaking book and movie about #memoryloss Alice is an accomplished woman , but odd glitches in her memory send her to doctors looking for answers.A great read about early onset Alzheimer‘s.
pickWhat great insight into the mind of someone with EOAD. For a perspective I‘ve long wondered about, Lisa Genova brings this condition to a realistic forefront that is both tragic and meaningful to the reader.
My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. Some tomorrow soon, I‘ll forget that I stood before you and gave this speech. But just because I‘ll forget it some tomorrow doesn‘t mean that I didn‘t live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn‘t mean that today didn‘t matter
Genre: Drama
Date Started: Dec. 24th
Date Completed: Dec. 28th
How did you choose this book: I got this book as a present in a christmas party.
Write a brief summary of the novel: A Harvard psychology professor gets alzheimer's and her relationship with her family struggles.
Mom saw how much this book affected me, she read it too and was similarly touched. So she went on a mission to find this now hard-to-find movie for me for Christmas. She did find it (the digital coupon expired back in 2018 so I believe her). My men are out of town tonight so I decided it‘s as good a time to watch it as any. Not very Christmas-y but well, still worth one point in #wintergames
#tmskellington @crimson613 @clwojick @staycurious
pickThis book gave me a better perspective of a person with Alzheimer's disease. At times it was quite emotional and I emphasized with the protagonist.
It is a must read
Fingers crossed.
Read in Quartz: https://apple.news/AJ26AATcHQG6Oi3Nz4HOGOA
pickDid you know this book was originally self-published? It deserves 5 stars plus. The quote here is from the author‘s letter to readers. I‘m convinced. This book will convince you, this disease must be conquered. Read this book, when you are emotionally prepared. It is gentle and thoughtful but heart-rending. A must read for anyone who loves anyone.
“In truth, she‘d lost the ability to compose words out of the alphabet letters on the keys. Her ability to use language, that thing that most separates humans from animals, was leaving her, and she was feeling less and less human as it departed. She‘d said a tearful good-bye to okay some time ago.”
Alice, with early onset Alzheimer‘s, gives a speech with this soul-stirring sentiment.
During bad insomnia last night, I decided to start this ebook. It‘s quite addictive.
I had to buy this one. It‘s been on my tbr list for a long time.
1. Tagged
2. My husband makes it most days but it gets made every day!
3. Not my fav
4. 8.5 US
5. @BobbyPenn
pickThis book broke my heart. It is the journey of a brilliant woman who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer‘s. A good telling of a terrible event.
