The minute that I stepped into the dining room on my first day of Thanksgiving break, my eye fell on a paperback with a yellow cover. “Who’s reading this?” I asked my dad. He replied that, at the moment, no one was. And with that information, I snatched up the book and proceeded to gobble up the first few pages. I, unfortunately, had to eat and then sleep, but as soon as I could the next day, I continued with my latest adventure… and I finished it that same day.

This book that caught my attention so immediately was Still Alice by Lisa Genova. Some may recognize this title from the recent film adaptation starring Julianne Moore. I have not seen the movie, but I have been long curious about both the novel and the movie, especially since the main character has Alzheimer’s, a disease that I have watched my grandmother go through for many years.

The difference about the protagonist, Alice, is that she has Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease (sometimes referred to as EOAD in the novel). The book begins right before her fiftieth birthday when she starts noticing strange memory lapses. At first, she thinks that it is menopause because of her age, but after visiting a neurologist, she discovers the unexpected and beyond life-changing diagnosis. The rest of the novel spans the next two years during which she becomes more and more lost to dementia.

When I first picked it up, I didn’t have high hopes for the quality of the writing because I expected it to be a typical illness story, like ones that I have read about cancer. But I was very wrong. My breath was almost taken away by the beauty and simplicity of the first scene in which Alice’s husband is looking for something and she notices how all the clocks in the house do not tell the right time. Not only is it written well, but it is magnificent symbolism and foreshadowing.

I do not know how well Genova portrays Early Onset Alzheimer’s, but I do know how familiar the symptoms that are described sound like from watching my grandmother, especially the wandering, the asking to go home, and the eventual forgetting of who her loved ones are.

Please read this book. It will ruin you (in a good way, I promise).