Back to it with day six of the book challenge. So the book that I chose that makes me sad is Still Alice by Lisa Genova. This book follows the life of Alice Howland after she finds out that she has Alzheimer’s.
Synopsis: 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’s it’s like to literally lose your mind…
It was very interesting to see how she dealt with this disease. Alzheimers for me is a very scary disease and is actually my biggest fear. My grandmother had it and it was awful to see someone just deteriorate to the point of not knowing the people around her whom she had known and loved her entire life. To put yourself in those shoes and imagine how you would just disappear as a person is how this book is. You live through Alice losing herself. She forgets her routines and how to think and comprehend for basic daily tasks. She knows its happening and then she doesn’t know its happening and its really sad. Her family struggles through with her and her descent into nothingness. Along the way it happens to bring her daughter and her closer together.
There was a movie made based on this book and Julianne Moor played Alice. I saw the movie and I have to admit that she did an exceptional job, especially at the part where she gives a speech in Harvard University to celebrate that she is and will be her no matter what a disease has to say about it.
If you like sad reads (it really is a very good book, just hit home for me), you can find this book on Goodreads or Amazon and you can find Lisa Genova on Twitter. Stay tuned for more of the book challenge and I will talk to you soon bookworms!
I’m so sorry about your grandmother Erik. Alzheimer’s is truly a horrible disease. There’s two books that immediately spring to my mind. Love Story, by Eric Segal and The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold.
Oh it was a long time ago but thank you. I saw The Lovely Bones movie but I bet the book would be better as it always is 😛
There are books out there that make me sad, but simply because of the one I’m currently “fighting” through, I can’t say anything other than “Milk and Honey” by Rupi Kaur. I’m reading it in little bits, simply because I have to catch my breath all the time. It’s been a while since I full-on realized that words can cut so deep and that poetry is.. as straight as a very, very sharp arrow.
Oh I have seen that one around, it has such a beautiful cover design! It sounded good too when I read the back. I seem to be drawn to sad books 😛
It does! I guess we all have our moments when we’re drawn to sad books though. I don’t have it that often, but when I do, I end up crying over it. :’)
A book I read long ago had one scene that was so powerful, so sad, I had to close the book right there. I even remember where I was when I came across that scene like it had been an actual disaster. I couldn’t open the book again for three days.
Tempting Fate by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. One of her historical Count Saint-Germain novels. Saint-Germain, an actual mysterious historical character, is portrayed as a vampire (not your typical blood-sucking variety) who is ancient. Each of her books is set in a different century. The author does some deep historical research, writes in actual events, political intrigues, court schemes, historical figures, and produces a rich novel that draws you into that world. It was through one of her books I learned something about the Medecis of Florence (won a trivial pursuit game much later on a question based on them), and did some of my own digging to find out more (this was before the internet took off so I relied on library encyclopaedias. Not often will you get a book that is entertaining, has a supernatural element, a hard-to-put-down read, and educational all at the same time.
Wow that does sounds very powerful. I haven’t had a book that has done that for me yet but there is still time. Its always great when you find a good writer that can just come up with the perfect combination of awesome !