If I’m being brutally honest, I’ll tell you again that the writing and editing isn’t great, but hell, it was Genova’s first go and she did it all on her own without a publishing house dumping a truckload of money and resources on her doorstep.

They talk about the limited access to the caregivers’ perspective, and the repetition of scenes – but I think it’s those same “shortcomings” that were the most valuable and deliberate parts of the book, they set it apart from others on this subject. I find it really hard to criticise Genova, and Still Alice: not because the book is so brilliant that it wouldn’t warrant criticism, but because basically every review out there hammers home the same perceived shortcomings. Turns out I’m not made out of stone, who knew? 😉 It was her final student writing down his words of gratitude for her, so that she could re-read them every day when she inevitably forgot how much she meant to him, that got me in the end. I did have a bit of a teary moment towards the end, but not when you’d expect! Alice’s attempt to execute her own suicide plan, and her inability to recognise her newly-born grandchildren, didn’t touch me in the slightest. I did notice as I sped through that some of the editing is a bit rubbish (which is unsurprising for self-published work), but I can still understand how it made the Dymocks 101. It isn’t a timeless classic, or a work of art, but it’s an interesting story rooted in heart-wrenching subject matter, and it’s told in a very engaging way. The limited-third person narrator still captures Alice’s internal world, but that coupled with the objective perspective on her symptoms (we see her repeating herself in the dialogue, acting in ways that clearly demonstrate she’s forgotten what she’s supposed to be doing, etc.) is really jarring in an oddly delightful way. I was initially kind of disappointed to find that it wasn’t written in the first person – I thought that would have been a really cool and interesting technique given the subject.

Alice (the protagonist, duh) begins experiencing symptoms, and the story follows her diagnosis and mental disintegration as the disease advances. Still Alice focuses on the onset of dementia, specifically Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. I powered through it in less than 24 hours. However, much like The Book Thief, despite the really heavy content the book is actually very digestible. The language and rhythm of Still Alice was a big shift from Moby Dick, and it took me a minute to re-orient my dish. It’s one of those Cinderella publishing stories that struggling, neurotic writers hold close to their hearts late at night, when the demons come… She had tried for years to get an agent or a publisher interested in the novel, but went on to have great success off the sweat of her own brow. Lisa Genova self-published Still Alice back in 2007. (Don’t forget: if you use an affiliate link on this page, I’ll earn a small commission!)

Still Alice by Lisa Genova