Rating: 5 out of 5

I read this after seeing the film. Which isn’t something I do very often. The film is a good adaption but the book is very well put together. The building confusion is well portrayed. And having watched my Mum’s slow decline with dementia I found some bits familiar and upsetting - which makes it feel real. Beautiful.

Highlighted passages:

because she’d forget how to swallow, she’d develop pneumonia.

She wished she had cancer instead. She’d trade Alzheimer’s for cancer in a heartbeat. She felt ashamed for wishing this, and it was certainly a pointless bargaining, but she permitted the fantasy anyway. With cancer, she’d have something that she could fight. There was surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. There was the chance that she could win. Her family and the community at Harvard would rally behind her battle and consider it noble. And even if defeated in the end, she’d be able to look them knowingly in the eye and say good-bye before she left.

I’m exhausted, and every time I forget something I think I’m becoming symptomatic.”

Even biographies not saturated with disease were vulnerable to holes and distortions.

I’m trying to make a decision that’s rational and not emotional.” “Why? What’s wrong with being emotional about this? Why is that a negative thing? Why isn’t the emotional decision the right decision?” asked the woman who wasn’t crying.

Be creative, be useful, be practical, be generous, and finish big.

Originally posted to my Goodreads account