Still Alice

I've wanted to read this novel for awhile, but I was going through a difficult time and didn't think a book that I thought would be depressing was a good choice. So it had been on the back burner for the past year....literally a year. It's been on my bookshelf screaming, read me! read me! Well, I finally did, near the holidays too (what was I thinking?).




The story starts with Alice, the ever energetic and highly intelligent cognitive psychology professor at Harvard University. It's a typical day, a busy career woman running around the house with her husband getting ready for work, she forgets little things on the way but it means nothing to her, she's rushing, just getting back from a business trip and overwhelmed. As the book progresses, Alice starts to realize that the memory loss she's experiencing doesn't seem normal (ie: forgetting her way home when she goes out for a jog). Finally, at the age of 50, Alice is diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer's disease. From that moment on, her life and her family's life is drastically different. She's not sure what to do, she's still young! She wants to keep working! She still has such a life to live! She was about to take a sabbatical with her husband and travel! Her kids are thinking of having kids! What is she going to do? All of these emotions are portrayed at different times throughout the novel, but Alice keeps a calmness to her even when she feels like her world keeps getting worse.

The story progresses through every stage that a family goes through when a loved one is diagnosed with a disease, especially one that effects the mind. Alice coping with losing her memory, while trying to still be the person she was, becoming more confused as the days go on. Her husband in denial that the person he loved and married can't even remember him all the time, and her children. Her children not only have to deal with her mother deteriorating but also the very good possibility that they too could carry the gene and end up with the same disease that is changing their mother. While all this is going on, they are still trying to live as normally as possible, which is what everyone does. They look for normality even when it might not be there, they start to appreciate what they have/had and try to work through it altogether......

Little back story on my experience with Alzheimer's and Dementia: 

1.) I know what it's like to live with a loved one that has some form of dementia and it's devastating
2.) I've worked in a nursing home, on a floor with people who have Alzheimer's and Dementia and see what the family members go through
3.) I actually wrote my capstone/thesis on this very disease and the effects music can have as a coping mechanism

All of these combine into the very simple reason why I wanted to read this book, I wanted to see if it gave the impression that I've seen to people who have never been effected by the disease. Short answer, it did. 

It's heart wrenching to read and to be honest there were times when I had tears in my eyes, which was embarrassing because I was reading in a public place. However, it brings to light what family members and the person with the illness go through on a daily basis. When I finished this book all I wanted to do was yell on the top of my lungs to anyone that would listen to read this book and read it now. To understand how much these people need us to support them in any way we can.

Oh and to go donate to the Alzheimer's Association or do a walk for Alzheimer's, something to show that we stand with them.

For more information on Alzheimer's Disease, please visit the link: http://www.alz.org/
If you click on the book cover you can get more information from GoodReads

The Love I have for Poldark

Alright so I am going to start off with the best series I've read on my absence. Which can probably account for why I wasn't blogging on here for so long.

We all know I like book series-- you've got Outlander, Harry Potter, Narnia etc. So I needed another one. I had read an article that said, if you liked Downton Abbey and Outlander you should try PBS' reboot of Poldark. So I did, I watched the first season and fell in love instantly. When I found out it was a book series, well game over. I immediately started buying each book as I quickly as I could.

The books are written by Winston Graham, there are 12 of them total so it's a nice long series, roughly 400 and 500 pages long. What's crazy about these books is that there is a huge gap in between the first half and second half. I'm really happy I wasn't around in 1945 when the first book came out and would need to wait patiently (impatiently) for the next. Instead I could just read all these 12 at once. Want to know what made this even crazier? I loved the story so much that I didn't want it to end, so I would read one of them, then a completely different novel so that it spread the series out People on the bus were making fun of me (we will get to that in a different post)! I've also now decided I'm going to England next year so I can relive where this story takes place. Alright enough with the rambling....

This will be a compilation of all the books, I'm not going to tell you about each but just give you an overview. I think my love for it did enough on why you should read it :). 

It follows a man named Ross Poldark who arrives back from the Revolutionary War to his home in Cornwall, England where his life is completely different. His father is dead, the woman he thought he would marry is engaged to his cousin and he now is the owner of his family's land, its villagers, house and mine. He has to start over. So the first book is really about him doing just that, a struggling mine owner trying to make ends meet, finding love again in an unexpected place and moving forward with his life. The next 11 books follow his journey from early 30s into his mid 60s (I believe), the trials, tribulations, the love, the loss, the new life he will lead with his family as they move from the 1700s to the 1800s. You will be see a part of the Napoleonic Wars, maybe understand Parliament a littler better (maybe not, it doesn't go into that too much), read a random conversation about a young writer who wrote Pride and Prejudice and watch the family grow from young adults to old, children into adults. It hits everything I would want in a novel. But don't forget, this is what I live for. Historic Europe that I never learned in text books. Especially this time period. 

I fell in love with Winston Graham's characters, all of them --even the bad ones, I found myself eager to know what was going to happen to them and sad when I knew it was over. It was as if their lives were somehow real and I was getting a glimpse into it. Of course, yes I know they weren't real but there were people just like them, miners trying to stay alive in Cornwall, England in the 1700-1800s and I am just fascinated by them and thanks to Winston Graham I might understand what their life was like even more. 

Here is the link to everything you need to know about Poldark:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/poldark?_requestid=789315

The Thousandth Floor

I've been reading a lot lately. My new job has given me the advantage of public transportation so everyday I read for about an hour and half. Anyway, that's great news for you guys! I'll have more book reviews. First up is The Thousandth Floor which I read about through ThSkim blog. I'm not going to lie, theSkim provides a lot of book reviews and I've yet to find one that I really truly loved from there. This one, is not exception. It might be that I've recently been reading the Poldark series (we will get to that later in the week) and comparing the two just isn't something that really should be done but I did it anyway.



Alright let's get into The Thousandth Floor. The story takes place in 2118 where you get to read about multiple characters whose lives are forever intertwined before they even realize it. In 2118, NYC looks a lot different compared to what we know of it now. Depending on how much money you have will depend on what floor you live on, what clothes you wear, where you go to school and the amount of technology you have. The richer you are, the less likely you will have something that looks like a cell phone but rather a device that reads your messages over you eyes. I have to admit, the description of closet was my favorite, I won't spoil that detail for you. Anyway, the characters range from all floors and all lives all the way up to the you guessed it 1,000 floor. To me, this book was a little too pretty little liars futuristic read. The characters were kind of all the same, had their secrets that they didn't want people knowing. Was it suspenseful? Not really, was a book to read after something so sophisticated like Poldark? Yes, it was. To me, it was a good beach read. Unfortunately I don't think it was good enough for me to read the second one, I seem to have finished this story and not cared what happened to the characters next.

Me Before You

Me Before You by JoJo Moyes was probably one of my random favorites so far this year, I obviously wanted to read it because of the movie trailer, which by the way I haven't seen yet but now I'm afraid that seeing the movie will ruin this book for me so I've been hesitant. Okay, so the novel is about two young people with two very different lives. Will had everything, a high end job, a family with money, any woman and adventure that he could want. Lou didn't have everything. She had a family that lived paycheck by paycheck, she worked to help get them through while helping to take care of her sister and her sisters young child. However, everything changes when Will is a an accident that leaves him unable to move, while months later Lou loses her job and is in search of another one. This is where their lives become one.

Think about your life, whether you think its the best or not, but what happens when you wake up and your life has changed so drastically that you don't know what to do? This is how Will feels throughout the book, he cannot move forward with a life that he has. I think the descriptions of how Will felt was done so well that you could feel his pain. So when Lou goes to work for Will to be his caretaker, she tries everything she can to make his life more than what he believes it will be. will it work? Will what she can offer save him from his depression and bring him back toward a reality worth living?

This one is a tear jerker. I wasn't sure if I would cry but Jojo's character are brought to life enough where I couldn't help it. Some people (if you click on the picture) will say they didn't like the characters. But I thought the characters were real, maybe a little immature at times but they are young, in their 20s and though have lived very different experiences doesn't mean they can't still have times when they are immature. Me Before You made me want to read others by Jojo Moyes, she has a sequel to this one and another new one coming out this fall- that one is definitely on my list to read! 

Red Queen

Red Queen is another Divergent/Hunger Games thriller. It's a young adult series by Viictoria Aveyard. I was looking once again for a series that I could read. This one popped up, I can't even remember why. I think it was because of good old Barnes and Noble that talked about upcoming books. In fact, I finished the first one and thought the second one was ALREADY out and it wasn't, so I waited patiently for February for when I could get my hands on it! 

 

Red Queen is about a young girl named Mare who has red blood and no trace of being 'special' in the yes of her world. The Silvers have special features, they can make fire, forge things into metal, and play with people's minds at their will. Each has a different ability that makes them different from the rest, especially the reds. Mare becomes a servant for the royal king and queen by the Prince (though she doesn't know that at first). While there, she falls into electricity and doesn't die. It's the first time a red has shown any kind of power that Silvers may have. This leads to danger, the Royal family doesn't know what to do so they pretend she is a Silver that no one knew about and forces her to agree to marry the youngest Prince. Meanwhile, Mare is working with people to try and take the Royal family and the Kingdom down because of the way they treat the reds as unequal. What happens when the Kingdom realizes what she is? What happens when the Queen has had enough, and what happens when Mare realizes there are more like her out there that could be saved and join a rebellion to free her people from a life of misery? You have to read to find out! Even I do, there are three books in this series!

That's a little synopsis of the story line. What I liked about it, is that it's a quick lead and interesting. I liked Divergent, I liked Hunger Games and I liked this. There are a few similarities, such as a love triangle (as always) but I found it less immature like Hunger Games and more adult like Divergent (even though Divergent didn't have a love triangle).

The Nightingale

Well, I think I found my favorite book of the year. Yes, I understand that it's pretty early into the year but I don't think that matters. The Nightingale might be one of my favorite books of all time. This isn't an exaggeration either, I've told everyone about it and have recommended that they read it. You will see on Goodreads that some people enjoyed All The Light We Cannot See. While that book was good, this one, in my opinion was so much better.

The Nightingale is about two sisters living completely different lives for their whole life and specifically during WWII. Vianne is a working mother whose husband has been sent off to war in 1939. While her husband is in the war, Vianne is attempting to keep her and her daughter alive while working as a teacher as her school (with her best friend who is Jewish)  and at first taking her sister, Isabelle in when her father sends her from Paris. When the invasion happens, so does a German Nazi to live with Vianne and her daughter during the war. Vianne has the option of leaving her home or living among the German, something her sister Isabelle cannot understand and leaves. Isabelle goes back to Paris to try and find a way to help the world defeat the Nazis by attempting to bring downed pilots safely over the boarder where they can continue to fight Germany.

The story in itself was one that I couldn't put down, one that when Francis wanted to go do something else, I begged not to so I could keep reading. It's also the first book I think I have ever read that not only had a story but also brought an emotional connection to it that I've never witnessed before. I don't think I've ever become teary eyed more often in a book than this one. It's raw, it's beautiful, it's a story of heroics, love, sadness, and courage. If there is ever a book that I have reviewed on this blog, this is the one that I would say is the one to read over all the rest.

Allegiant

Allegiant

Okay, so here is the last book in the Divergent Series. Readers are mixed on their reactions to this book. Once again it's hard to write this because I don't want to give people anything away. So let's just go into a little bit of what happens when you first start. To start, the book is narrated in the eyes of both Tris and Tobias, each chapter seems to switch back and forth between the two. 

The book begins with a revelation that no one saw coming, while that is happening, Tobias is dealing with more of Tris' lies to him. But don't worry, he finds a way to disappoint her too. So while they learn about what's beyond the wall, they also deal with what Divergence really means and what it doesn't mean. 

While Tris and Tobias are outside the wall, they are learning about the country they have been living in this whole time (the United States) while also trying to figure out how to help people within and people at their new location. It becomes difficult as it always does with these two. 

A lot of people seemed to dislike how the book continues and ends. To me, it defined what bravery is, in ways that others couldn't. It also shows what it means to find yourself and know what to do with that revelation. Love is described in ways that others may not think and not just with Tris and Tobias but with Tobias' mother as well. Was it what I wanted to have happen? No- but what was great about it is that it was something different, something other books like it hasn't done. 

You may not enjoy this book, maybe you will be on the opposite side of my opinion. That's okay but I would love to know what you thought about it! The best part about writing these little descriptions is that I hope it will start a discussion in some way or another. 

Here's a link to my favorite barnes and noble for more information :)

Barnes and Noble: Allegiant