Let me start this out by saying, I am not a crier. I very rarely cry in public, despite people often thinking that I should or that I will. I do tend to tear up occasionally, but it is usually happy tears or when I witness something horrendous happening to animals. It just doesn't happen much. People sometimes joke about my "lack of a heart" or absence of emotions.
That being said, I sobbed, uncontrollably sobbed, when I read this book. This is such a beautiful, heartbreaking, and moving story. Though it is a work of fiction, I kept catching myself thinking that this was a true story. That Dr. Alice Howland is in fact a professor of psychology at Harvard University. That her husband, Dr. John Howland, is doing cancer research in his lab. That her children Anna, Tom, and Lydia are successfully living their lives in Boston and New York. However, they are all beautifully-crafted characters of fiction created by Lisa Genova. I cared deeply about each and every one of these characters.
This is the story of a brilliant teacher, researcher, and mother who at age 50 begins to notice that she is forgetting things. On a run, only a mile from her home that she has lived in for 25 years, she becomes confused and doesn't know how to get home. After seeing her doctor, she decides to see a neurologist. She learns that she has early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. It is genetic, and her children have a 50 percent chance of also having this devastating illness.
What is magical about this story, aside from the beautiful characters that are created, is how the author uses first-person narration and language to slowly show the decline of Alice. At first, you don't even notice the small changes. If you compare the words used at the end of the novel and the beginning, you see a marked change in her command over the English language.
There is a movie based on this book. While I am curious about this, I think I will probably end up in tears, and perhaps disappointed that it doesn't measure up to the book, so I think I will pass. Do the movies ever compare to the books? I don't think so!
That being said, I sobbed, uncontrollably sobbed, when I read this book. This is such a beautiful, heartbreaking, and moving story. Though it is a work of fiction, I kept catching myself thinking that this was a true story. That Dr. Alice Howland is in fact a professor of psychology at Harvard University. That her husband, Dr. John Howland, is doing cancer research in his lab. That her children Anna, Tom, and Lydia are successfully living their lives in Boston and New York. However, they are all beautifully-crafted characters of fiction created by Lisa Genova. I cared deeply about each and every one of these characters.
This is the story of a brilliant teacher, researcher, and mother who at age 50 begins to notice that she is forgetting things. On a run, only a mile from her home that she has lived in for 25 years, she becomes confused and doesn't know how to get home. After seeing her doctor, she decides to see a neurologist. She learns that she has early-onset Alzheimer's Disease. It is genetic, and her children have a 50 percent chance of also having this devastating illness.
What is magical about this story, aside from the beautiful characters that are created, is how the author uses first-person narration and language to slowly show the decline of Alice. At first, you don't even notice the small changes. If you compare the words used at the end of the novel and the beginning, you see a marked change in her command over the English language.
There is a movie based on this book. While I am curious about this, I think I will probably end up in tears, and perhaps disappointed that it doesn't measure up to the book, so I think I will pass. Do the movies ever compare to the books? I don't think so!