This is exactly the kind of book I love reading. It's serious and sad without being overwhelmingly depressing, it handles a serious topic with sensitivity and care, it asks provoking questions and brings up thoughtful discussions. And it's a great story with well developed characters. Like everything I love is here, and I will probably reread this book in the future because I thought it was that great. This book will live on my shelf, and if it anything ever happens to my copy, I will for sure replace it.

I loved the representation in this. Obviously I can never know what it's like to be in the head of someone with Alzheimer's, but from the outside this whole book felt so real. The word for word repeated conversations, and forgetting simple tasks, and speech barrier where she obviously knows what she means but can't come up with half the words in the sentence. Asking to go to the place or needing a thing that does you know, what I need. Either Genova has personal experience or she has done a great deal of research because it was all so spot on.

She handled the decline so well. Watching Alice from the beginning of the book was she was very nearly her usual self slowly lose bits of and pieces of herself was heartbreaking. There were so many ways it was well done, but especially early on I loved her to do lists. Nearly every day, Alice wrote herself a to do list. At the beginning of the book it was simple and vague "Lydia, class, meeting." As the book went along, the list got more involved "cognitive psychology class at 1:15pm in room 243, your notes are in the green folder." It was such a great way to illustrate the various ways she was managing to cope with her worsening memory.

One thing I didn't necessarily love was the lack of "bad days" shown. Now, let me explain what I mean and why. My grandmother had Alzheimer's and I lived with/cared for her during the last years of her life, so I had a lot of first hand experience. And Genova does a great job of illustrating what Alzheimer's is like (at least, what it looks like to an outsider). But it felt like at times this book was almost too positive. Like she definitely shows the decline and the horrors of the disease and how bad it is, but it felt to me like she always stopped short of just how bad it can get.

It was the kind of thing where Alice would be in a room with her daughter and not know where she was or who her daughter was or what was going on, but she'd still feel a love and attachment. Which sure, fine, that happens quite a bit. But I feel like the book never showed the other side of that, not knowing who her daughter is or where she was and being wholly frightened, feeling no recognition or love, feeling kidnapped, lashing out in anger or violence because of that, trying to escape, accusing them of bad things. There's a lot of both once you get toward the end stages and I was disappointed that in the later part of the book, it never went there. For me, this book needed to go a little further in that regard. Good days and bad days are so common, even good mornings and bad nights. Or a bad moment of accusing your daughter of kidnapping you that's forgotten in ten minutes. This book was more about the early onset aspect and Alice's decline so it wouldn't have been relevant until much later in the book anyway, but I did expect it to come up at some point and it never did.

By the end, this book made me cry. I love crying over a book because I love caring that much. It's just heartbreaking to watch someone's health and mind decline and there's nothing anyone can do except hold her hand and remind her who they are. It's just sad. Not melodramatic, but sad in that small way where you see it and feel it and it's too close.

There was some question over her wishes in the end and what Alice would want to do, because even though she was still present she wasn't really capable of looking at whole situations and making decisions. Watching her family struggle with that and argue for her was hard, and I almost wish there had been a tiny bit more of it, but I don't think this book was trying to be very message driven. There was just enough of a hint to make you think. I don't think Genova and I are necessarily in agreement over a few things, but they were subtle enough that it didn't affect my enjoyment of the book. Had it been more preachy (it definitely wasn't), I would probably have a lot more things to say in that regard.

So yes, I do recommend this. Wholeheartedly. It touched my heart and I'm sure a great many people will love this as much as I did. It's just good. Like everything I said above stands, but at the end of the day this is a good book and we should all read good books. I've not read Genova before, but I'm already interested in picking up more of her books.