Transmission by Morgan Rice

Transmission is the first book in the Invasion Chronicles by well-known fantasy and sci fi author Morgan Rice. In this novel, a terminally ill boy believes he is receiving transmissions from aliens and travels to SETI to get help in decoding them. But the transmissions, meant to be a warning, come to late to prevent a world-wide catastrophe for Earth.

Thirteen-year-old Kevin McKenzie has been having "visions" for weeks. Kevin, who lives with his  mother, an advertising agency employee, in Walnut Creek, tries to convince her the visions are real. It wasn't until he fainted that his mother finally took him to the doctor. This eventually let to the hospital and then to see Dr. Markham who diagnosed Kevin with a form of leukodystrophy.  The rare illness which affects the myelin sheath of the brain will eventually kill him. In the hallucinations, Kevin sees a strange landscape, palm trees with twisted trunks and a purple sky. And always there are two sets of numbers: 23h 06m 29.283s and -05 02' 28.59

When Kevin has another fainting spell and vision at school and begins talking about planets, the principal suggests that Kevin should stay home. At this point Kevin decides to see Dr. Yalestrom, a psychologist.When Dr. Yalestrom asks Kevin to draw what he sees in his visions, he lets "the pencil flow over the paper automatically" and produces a detailed blueprint of a spaceship. Dr. Yalestrom believes that Kevin's visions are him trying to come to terms with his illness. The fire and destruction he sees reflect the sense of doom and the numbers counting down are part of that ending.

Kevin finally decides to tell his best friend Luna about his visions. To his surprise, Luna believes that his visions are really ones of an alien world and wonders if somehow his illness has given him the ability to connect to it. When Luna enters the first set of numbers into her phone, she tells Kevin they bring up the TRAPPIST-1e system which has planets believe to harbour life. Luna believes that Kevin should contact the scientists from SETI.

At first Kevin is dismissive of Luna's suggestion but then he decides to ask his mother to take him. His mother however, wants nothing to do with this and at first refuses to drive him to San Francisco to meet with the SETI scientists. She eventually relents and the two set out for the SETI Institute in Mountain View. At SETI, Kevin and his mother are initially turned down, but when the receptionist learns that Kevin is terminally ill, she arranges for Dr. Elise Levin, the director to see them. During his time in the lobby of the building, Kevin has a vision in which he sees a silvery object in space with the words Pioneer 11.

In talking to Dr. Levin and telling her about his hallucinations, the meaning of the numbers and that he believes someone is attempting to contact Earth. She is skeptical and tells Kevin she needs something new as proof his visions are authentic. Kevin then states that he believes they will receive a signal from Pioneer 11, a deep space probe NASA launched. Almost immediately Dr. Levin's phone rings and she is told that NASA is receiving telemetry from Pioneer 11.

Dr. Levin and Kevin race to NASA where Kevin meets Dr. Brewster and Phil a researcher who runs a number of tests on him. Eventually is allowed to listen to the Pioneer telemetry and he is able to decipher more messages, this one, "We are coming. Be prepared to accept us." However, Dr. Brewster remains skeptical. He is eventually able to translate a much longer message which has come from aliens almost forty years ago. It reveals that their world has been destroyed, three inhabited planets out of seven. Their home planet was destroyed by fires, after the collapse of their colonies.

Kevin rebels against Brewster's determination to keep the messages secret and tells the media what has been happening. He does this because he believes the messages are for all the people of Earth. More messages reveal that the aliens have sent capsules out to all the inhabited worlds, with a record of their history. It says that the capsules have a tight seal to preserve them and that they must find the capsule. Eventually the coordinates to the location of the capsule are sent. These coordinates are shared with the public and are eventually determined to be a location in the Colombian rainforest. Kevin along with his mom, Luna, Dr. Levin, Dr. Brewster and Ted, are determined to find the capsule before other teams of scientists. They have no idea that their discovery will unleash an overwhelming terror on Earth.

Discussion

Transmission is a fun, quick sci fi read that is best suited for ages nine to twelve. A young boy, suffering from a terminal illness discovers that he is able to receive and decode messages from an alien civilization. Unknown to Kevin and the NASA scientists there are two sets of messages, some are a warning that some of the messages are misleading and have been sent by aliens who will harm Earth. Eventually Kevin receives a message that is a warning to the people of Earth not to open a capsule that has landed on Earth, or they risk destruction. Unfortunately, this message is not decoded in time to prevent a world-wide catastrophe, which only Kevin and Luna do not succumb to. This sets the stage for the next book in the series.

There are plenty of holes in Rice's story line. For example when it is discovered the alien object has landed in the Colombian rain forest, the world's scientists race to Colombia hoping to locate it. It's unlikely a sovereign country would allow hordes of scientific teams to simply descend on the a delicate ecosystem so quickly. Scientists and upper level government officials would need to co-ordinate with Colombian officials to organize the search and to determine what will happen to the capsule.

As is typical in many juvenile and young adult novels, the adults in Transmission are generally portrayed as dumb, violent and unable to resolve issues or solve problems. Instead that seems to be the job of the thirteen-year-old protagonist who is remarkably good at getting the adults to do what he suggests.

Despite these flaws, Transmission is an exciting novel that reads quickly and will leave readers wanting more.

Book Details:

Transmission by Morgan Rice
Self published
169 pp.

Invincible by Amy Reed

Seventeen-year-old Evie Whinsett was diagnosed with cancer a year ago - a small tumour in her left hip. Evie has Ewing's sarcoma, a type of cancer almost entirely restricted to teenagers. She had surgery to remove the tumour but then it became aggressive while she was in outpatient treatment, receiving rounds of chemotherapy every other three weeks. The soreness in her hip that existed after surgery felt different and two months ago doctors discovered the cancer had spread from her hip into her femur. Following radiation treatments, Evie suffered an accident while walking around Lake Merritt with her boyfriend, Will. Walking with a cane and in terrible pain, Evie collapsed as her left leg broke into five pieces.  Now she's back in Oakland Children's Hospital hospital struggling to cope with whatever the doctors find.

After going outside to catch some fresh air with her parents and sister Jenica, they meet with Dr. Jacobs who tells her that the prognosis is not good. Dr. Jacobs tells her that the cancer has metastasized and is now in her bone marrow which is why her leg broke. He recommends that after her broken leg heals, she go on an even more aggressive round of chemo and radiation and that she have a bone marrow transplant. All this is too much for Evie who decides, to the shock of her parents, that she will stop treatment. Over her parent's objections, Evie tells them with only a four percent chance of remission, she's done. For Evie, "...it is time to die. It's time to let everyone off the hook, let Mom and Dad get on with their lives and stop wasting all their energy on the wrong daughter."

Evie tells her two best friends in the hospital, Stella who has leukemia and Caleb who has brain cancer, that she will be going home in a few days because her cancer is terminal.  Evie first met Stella eight months ago when she was returning for her third round of chemo. Stella with her black felt hat is her best friend in their cancer world. Outside of hospital that honour belongs to Kasey Wexler-Beene whom Evie has known since kindergarten.  Telling Kasey was the hardest because she had to deal with Kasey's emotional response. The person Evie does not know how to tell is her boyfriend, Will Johnson, who is on their high school football team and who has been by her side through everything.

Evie's discharge is delayed after Will, drops his laptop on her injured leg. One day Stella, with the help of Caleb, spirits Evie out of the hospital and into her boyfriend, Cole's van. With Evie strapped down in a wheelchair in the back of the van, the three of them drive into the hills where they can see the lights of Oakland, the Bay Bridge and the San Francisco skyline. Stella gives Evie a CD of music which she tells Evie has music that is about questioning authority and "not believing blindly just because someone with power tells you something's true." She also introduces Evie to smoking pot. When Cole drops Evie and Stella off near the hospital which is in lock-down mode because they have gone missing. Nurse Moskowitz meets them and admonishes Evie for leaving and for taking the risk to Stella's health. "I don't understand how this became my fault, but I say sorry anyway. I look to Stella for some clue, but her eyes are glazed over and dim, like she used up every last ounce of strength she had in her for the trip..." Nurse Moskowitz realizes that Stella is running a high fever and tells Evie that with Stella being neutropenic (that is she has few white blood cells to fight off infection), she has no immune system.

The next day Stella visits Evie in a wheelchair and Evie realizes that despite Stella's strong personality, she appears very frail. Meanwhile Evie finds she feels stronger after her outing. "It's like last night changed something even deeper, like everything inside me has been turned upside down, or like the balance of the universe is off somehow..." However, Stella's visit ends with a terrible coughing fit and when Evie visits her the next day, she finds Stella hooked up to many machines and tubes. Stella tells Evie that her roommate has been moved down the hall which is an unspoken indication that Stella is probably dying.

Dr. Jacobs tells Evie's parents that she will be able to go home once her pain has stabilized but he wants to keep her a few more days to run tests. Inexplicably, Evie seems to be getting stronger and improving. For Evie this is shocking. "For so long, my life was on hold. Now my death is on hold, and it's just as irritating. " But while Evie is improving, Stella dies, leaving Evie unmoored and angry. Dr. Jacobs reveals that Evie's tests reveal that she is completely healthy - a miracle. Evie is discharged from hospital and sent home. But Evie's return to the land of the living is marred with anger and guilt. Cancer has changed her and she's no longer the person she was a year ago.

Discussion

Invincible is a very melodramatic novel that tackles terminal cancer, drug addiction and the emotional fallout of being a cancer survivor.  Evie's miraculous recovery seems to be a plot device for the author to explore several other issues such as identity, terminal illness, and drug addiction. 

From the day she is pronounced healthy, Evie is not happy as she struggles to discover her new identity. "I should feel something. Happy. Grateful. But I keep thinking about how the last thing Stella probably saw was a ceiling identical to this one, an empty expanse of flat, lifeless white..." When she returns home from the hospital, Evie feels she is no longer "Cancer Girl" but she doesn't know who she is. Evie's pain over Stella is so overwhelming that she no longer loves the things she did before she got sick. "Maybe Will can make me feel better. Maybe he'll take me into his arms and squeeze some joy into me. But what I really want to do is get into bed and sleep for as long as it takes for me to feel like doing all the things I used to love doing. I want to sleep until I can forget that Stella's gone."  As her family and friends try to pick up their lives and relationships with Evie once again, she resists. "I want to agree with them, but something inside me says not so fast. I'm not the girl they remember. I'm not anyone they know." In a letter she writes to Stella, Evie wonders who she now is. "If I'm not Cancer Girl, who am I exactly?" Crutches Girl? Gimpy-Leg Girl?...Everyone thinks I'm still so fragile. Don't they realize I survived? Don't they realize how tough that makes me?"

Evie struggles because she feels she has changed and that her family and friends do not recognize this. She feels people only know how to deal with her as a sick person, especially her mother, whom she describes as a helicopter parent with "her propellers buzzing." Kasey and Will are her two closest friends but she does not know how to talk with them - "...no one know what to do with me, and I don't know what to do with them."

She begins abusing Norco a drug prescribed to her for pain in her hip. When Dr. Jacob tells her he wants her weaned off the Norco, Evie decides she needs to find out where her mother is hiding the pills. Soon she is taking large quantities of pills to deaden the emotional pain she feels. During this time Evie meets a complete stranger, Marcus Lyon, who is from a wealthy family. Evie likes Marcus because he doesn't know her past and therefore doesn't view her as fragile. Her relationship with Marcus is based on shared pain and smoking pot together. But Marcus has his own demons; he's a stoner, and he cuts himself to cope with the pain of his older brother's suicide.  However, not even her relationship with Marcus is able to stop Evie's self destructive behaviour. She alienates her parents, her boyfriend Will whom she dumps, and her best friend Kasey. Evie fails all her classes and she shows up at her prom stoned and drunk. Soon even Marcus begins to recognize that Evie is not well.

Reed does a good job of portraying Evie's decline into opiate addiction and binge drinking to numb the pain she is feeling. She becomes a truly despicable character that readers have a hard time sympathizing with. In contrast to Evie, are her parents, especially her mother, who seem at a loss as to how to deal with her. Only her father seems to understand what is going on, yet he leaves her to make her own choices, believing that she needs to want to be helped. By the time Evie's parents have clued in to what's happening, it's almost too late. It is this part of the story that is troubling because most parents would likely have intervened well before this point. The fact that Evie begins to fail school and cannot seem to relate to any of her friends and appears to have undergone a serious personality change would indicate that all is not well.

Reed has populated her story with many interesting characters. Stella Hsu, an Asian girl with "beautiful black hair,,,long and straight and perfect." is sassy and quite witty. Cole who is a girl, who dresses as a boy and is Stella's devoted boyfriend, is caring. Will Johnson and Kasey are the foils to Evie, representing what she once was, a good student, a faithful friend and a positive, caring person. Marcus, despite being the person who likes to get stoned with Evie and who introduces her to magic mushrooms, is someone who has suffered but seems to be surviving. He begins to recognize that Evie is in trouble and tries to change her perspective on what is happening. "You keep acting like your invincible, but your life is falling apart. I can't stand watching you self-destruct. I love you too much. Nobody's invincible, not even you."  What we don't know is, is he too late? Although the advance descriptions of the novel suggest that Evie's problem will be dating a bad boy, Marcus is not the completely bad character he's made out to be. Marcus's problems simply exacerbate the ones Evie already has.

One of the reason's Reed is able to create realistic situations involving Evie and portray her self-destruction is that Reed herself did two stints in rehabilitation for drugs. She writes in an interview that "I didn't get high for fun like everyone else. I did it because I had to. It was the only way to keep myself from feeling all the horrible feelings that kept piling on the more I went in the wrong direction and the more I kept hurting myself. " Reed was both an alcoholic and a drug addict. After her second stint in rehab, Reed has remained clean. She's now a successful author who knows much about how life can sometimes spiral out of control.

Amy Reed is planning a second book, Unforgivable, which will be published in 2016.

Book Details:
Invincible by Amy Reed
New York: Katherine Tegen Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers      2015
325 pp.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Hazel Grace Lancaster was diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer that has metastasized into her lungs when she was thirteen-years-old. After surgery, radiation and chemo, Hazel's lungs began filling with fluid. By the time she was fourteen, Hazel was preparing to die. But a new (fictional) anti-cancer drug, Phalanxifor, resulted in a miraculous reprieve. Now sixteen-years-old and still considered  a terminal case, Hazel's damaged lungs require extra oxygen to help her breathe, so she lives life attached to a small oxygen tank. She doesn't attend school but Hazel does go to a cancer support group and it is at this group that she meets a handsome boy named Augustus (Gus) Waters.

It turns out that seventeen-year-old Augustus Waters has osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer which has resulted in the amputation of his right leg above the knee. Augustus has been told he has an eighty-five percent chance of remaining cancer free but as he says, he's "on a roller coaster that only goes up".

Attracted to Hazel, who looks astonishingly like his former girlfriend who died of a brain tumour, Gus asks her to come back to his house to watch the movie, "V for Vendetta". Hazel meets Gus's parents and learns about his family and discovers that  before cancer he was a good basketball athlete.

Hazel challenges Gus to read her favourite book, An Imperial Affliction by Peter Van Houten. Hazel is obsessed with this book which she feels contains some truisms about her life. "It wasn't even that the book was so good or anything; it was just that the author, Peter Van Houten, seemed to understand me in weird and impossible ways. An Imperial Affliction was my book, in the way my  body was my body, and my thoughts were my thoughts." In return, Gus challenges Hazel to read something different too; his favourite book, The Price of Dawn which is a novelization of his favourite video game starring Staff Sergeant Max Mayhem.

They read the books but it is Hazel's book that focuses their interest. An Imperial Affliction is a book about a girl named Anna dying of cancer that has a hanging ending and Hazel has always wanted to know what happened to the characters in the novel. When Gus reads the novel, he feels the same way. Gus is able to contact Van Houten via email despite Hazel's prior insistence that he is unreachable. After reading the email sent by Van Houten's assistant,  Lidewij Vliegenthart, Hazel also writes him begging him to tell her what happens to the characters in the novel. The response she receives is that Van Houten cannot respond to her request because his answers might constitute a sequel and therefore violate copyright. The unsuspecting Van Houten invites Hazel to visit him should she ever find herself in Amsterdam, of course knowing full well that she likely won't ever be able to.

But life has its twists and turns and in a strange turn, Hazel and Gus are able to travel to Amsterdam to meet Van Houten.  However, nothing turns out as they quite anticipated. There are no brilliant answers from Van Houten, because as they later learn, he too is searching for answers for a similar tragedy in his own life. Hazel and Gus exprience blossoming love for each other as well as a stunning revelation that tips their already upside down world.

Discussion  

Told in the past tense voice of Hazel, The Fault in Our Stars is about living life in the best way possible in the time we are given. This is especially good advice for those with a serious, or terminal illness, as in the case of Hazel and Gus. Hazel and Gus live their lives as most of us do, with a mixture of good and bad. The only difference is they have less time to do it in. The message of this novel, about living well in the time we are given, and especially for those who are suffering from a serious illness has been in Green's mind for a long time. Green worked as a chaplain at a children's hospital ministering to the families of children who were dying or who had died from serious illnesses. Expecting to become a minister, Green's experience as a student chaplain changed him and ultimately his choice of vocation.

There are plenty of cultural references (Swedish hip hop, America's Next Top Model, Anne Frank) in the book. The Fault in Our Stars can be read as just a simple, enjoyable read or the reader can go deeper and consider the many metaphors and symbols in the novel and enjoy those too. Just a few examples will do. Water is a big metaphor in the book. Green states that he wanted to show how often times things that are of benefit can also bring harm. For example, we need water to live but too much water, as in Hazel's case where her lungs continue to fill with water, is deadly. Gus' last name is Waters. And, key events in the book take place in Amsterdam, a city of dykes and canals that are used to keep back the sea, in the same way that her doctor, Maria is trying to keep the water in Hazel's lungs at bay too.

There is plenty of foreshadowing in the novel too. For example, Gus's death is foreshadowed when he and Hazel are watching movies on the flight over to Amsterdam and Gus' movie begins before Hazel's (he is older!) and ends sooner than hers, hinting that his life will end sooner like his movie does. Another example of foreshadowing is that of Gus always hanging up the phone first when he is talking to Hazel, suggesting that he will be gone sooner that Hazel.

Green makes interesting use of the novel An Imperial Affliction. Hazel is focused on this novel because the circumstances of Anna's life mirror her own life. Hazel wants to find out what happens to the characters, particularly Anna's mother, in An Imperial Affliction. This is important to her because as a person with a terminal illness she feels like she is "a grenade". Grenades explode and kill people and Hazel expects her eventual death will similarly cause great hurt and devastation to her parents. It is important to her that her mother continues to live her life since Hazel will one day not be there. Hazel wants to minimize the impact her death will have on her parents. Similarly she doesn't want to fall in love with Augustus for the same reason. For Gus however, this is a risk he is willing to take.

One of the most appealing aspects of this novel and one of the reasons for writing it (according to the author) is the realistic portrayal teenagers with a terminal illness. Green portrays how Hazel's life has been affected by cancer when Hazel's best friend, Kaitlyn takes her shopping. The shopping episode demonstrates what Hazel's life was once like and how different Hazel's life is now. But it also shows that Hazel is a teen with cancer who still likes to shop. Young people with cancer, are still young people, with aspirations and interests. Despite living in a world often filled with hospitals, medical procedures, pain and missed opportunities, they have dreams and desires just like everyone else. And not every ending is a happy one.

Green's use of sarcasm in Hazel's narration makes the two main characters, for whom day to day living is a struggle, very realistic. This realistic portrayal continues throughout the book. Hazel is concerned how her illness will affect others including her parents and Augustus. Gus and Hazel fall in love, just like many teenagers all over the world. When Augustus is dying he is no longer the nice guy he was at the beginning of the novel demonstrating that people who die of a terminal illness are human beings, not saints. Death is the final struggle and most of the time it is not a pretty or even a heroic one.

The novel takes its title from a quote in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in which Cassius says, "The fault dear Brutus, is in not our stars/But in ourselves" suggesting that Hazel and Gus's illnesses are not due to fate but just a part of the human condition. The Fault In Our Stars is a great read and if you haven't had the time this year, do so.

Book Details:
The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
New York: Dutton Group    2012
318 pp.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Alzheimer's disease was an entirely different kind of beast. There were no weapons that could slay it. Taking Aricept and Namenda felt like aiming a couple of leaky squirt guns in the face of a blazing fire....Right now, everyone with Alzheimer's faced the same outcome, whether they were eighty-two or fifty, resident of the Mount Auburn Manor or full professor of psychology at Harvard University. The blazing fire consumed all. No one got out alive.

Dr. Alice Howland is a thoroughly modern, middle-aged professional woman. A brilliant, psycholinguist, she is the William James Professor of Psychology at Harvard University where she studies the mechanism of languages.But something isn't just right.

For Alice it begins with forgotten words during lectures, a moment in Harvard Square where she has no idea where she is nor how to get home, a forgotten trip to the airport to catch a plane to a conference she'd spent the day preparing for, and names on to-do lists that mean nothing to her.  Suspecting that something is seriously wrong, and without the knowledge of her husband John, Alice goes to see her doctor who refers her to a neurologist. After testing, Alice receives the stunning diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's. It is both numbing and terrifying for her. She is fifty-years-old.

Alice struggles to tell John, who is a cancer cell biologist, because telling him will make it all "real". When she does, his reaction is almost cerebral and clinical. At first reluctant to believe her, John offers Alice no comfort. Instead he tells her he needs to find out more about Alzheimer's.

They decide to have Alice undergo genetic testing, which if positive, would support the clinical diagnosis, but if negative, would not necessarily rule it out. When genetic testing confirms her diagnosis, Alice and John must now come to terms with her disease, what this will mean to them as a couple and individually, and the implications for their three adult children who are at risk. After John and Alice tell their children, two decide to undergo genetic testing.

As part of coming to terms with her illness, Alice must decide what it is that she wants most in the time remaining to her. Alice feels at this point, that her career at Harvard is far down the list and that she would also like to spend more time with her husband and family. She also feels that "...when the burden of her disease exceeded the pleasure of that ice cream, she wanted to die." And so Alice develops a plan to deal with that point in her life.

Discussion

Told in Alice's voice, Still Alice follows one woman's journey into the world of progressive neurodegenerative disease that is Alzheimer's. It is a journey that at times evokes strong visceral reactions especially when it is evident how painful Alice's loss of memory is to her family. These moments are present enough that they give readers a realistic view into the world of Alzheimer's. The heartache of seeing Alice, at times so blissfully unaware of her loss, is countered by the loving response of her family in these moments. Readers also experience Alice's confusion and anger when her symptoms flare. Alzheimer's is a disease that won't wait.

Genova incorporates a significant amount of information about Alzheimer's disease into the novel. Information is sprinkled throughout the story as Alice's family confronts her diagnosis and deals with the many issues that result from her disease - for example, medications and home care. There is much information on current treatments and drug regimens (current to 2008/2009 when the book was written and published). Some readers might find this tiresome,  but this contributes to the novel's overall storytelling.

Since the two main characters, Alice and John are brilliant scientists and two of their  children are also in the field of medicine, the discussions are naturally cerebral and scientific. These characters allow the author the liberty of doing inserting a great deal of medical information. When Alice goes in for genetic testing we learn that there are three gene mutations that a person can be tested for - APP, PS1 and PS2. Without going into too much detail, the reader is given some essence of the ramifications of genetic testing for Alice and her husband, and their children. The reader is allowed to formulate their own ideas on the usefulness of genetic testing and what having those results might mean for family members.

One of the main issues explored in Still Alice, is that of quality of life in terminally ill persons. Still Alice is a novel that presents the lives of those with Alzheimer's as being worthy and having meaning - even when their world narrows and especially when in the present they can't foresee such meaning in the future. In a culture in which preconceived notions of "quality of life" are benchmarks for assisted suicide and euthanasia, Still Alice offers the idea that we can't know what life will be like and how we will feel until we get to that point. This is theme is explored in the novel through the actions of Alice both before her disease has progressed and when a crisis occurs.

Not long after Alice has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she decides that when her disease develops to a certain point, she no longer wants to live. She programs into her Blackberry, five very basic questions which she will answer every morning. She decides that when she can no longer answer these questions she will follow the instructions in a file named "Butterfly" on her computer. The instructions are to take an overdose without telling anyone. Alice has a preconceived notion of what her life will be like, of what her "quality of life" will be like at this future point in time. It is something though that she really can't know until she arrives at that moment in her life.

Interestingly, it is other circumstances that propel her to try to commit suicide before she reaches her preconceived end time. John is offered a job at the University of New York, which he decides to take, despite Alice's worsening health. This will mean moving Alice from everything that is familiar to a strange and new city. When his family challenges him on this, he refuses to back down. Alice realizes that she has made many sacrifices for John and she has made it easy for him to love her,  but when it is time for his love to become sacrificial he is not interested. She decides she must make the "sacrifice". Fortunately, she does not succeed.

Instead, with the help of her daughters, Alice stands up to John, remains in Boston and her youngest daughter, Lydia stays with her. When John, who must know about the "butterfly" file which was on her Blackberry and on her personal computer, asks her if she still wants to go on living, she says yes. As Still Alice demonstrates, when Alice is long past her predetermined "criteria" for a happy and worthy life, she is still happy and feels intense love! She can still find things to live for - her daughters, her grandchildren. "She didn't need to go anywhere. She felt lucky  about this. She and the woman she sat with listened to the girl with very long hair play her music and sing. The girl had a lovely voice and big, happy teeth and a lot of skirt with flowers all over it that Alice admired.

Alice hummed along to the music. She liked the sound of her hum blended with the voice of the singing girl."

Genova's use of the butterfly motif both in the naming of the suicide file and in the image of the butterfly on the cover and the butterfly motif on each page of the book is significant to the story and the issue of quality of life. Alice wears a beautiful blue art nouveau butterfly necklace that her mother gave her. When Alice was a small child she cried over the fact that the butterfly, although very beautiful, had such a short lifespan. Her mother however, felt that a short life did not mean a tragic one. The life of the butterfly was still beautiful as it moves from flower to flower. In Alice's mind, she will be like the butterfly - she will have a short life but it will beautiful.

Neither Alice nor John are likeable characters. Alice is cerebral, a modern woman whose life work was her passion.  John seemed distant and never seemed to show Alice much comfort. However, as the novel moved forward, Alice's disease made them more human and more compassionate. Lisa Genova adeptly portrayed the inner conflict John experienced when offered an exciting new position at a different university.He was torn between his new opportunity and his responsibilities to Alice as a caregiver and husband. Nevertheless it seemed that he largely abandoned his wife to the care of their daughter Lydia. The part of marriage about "in sickness" didn't seem to be important to him. Perhaps he was willing to give up too soon on Alice, rather than helping her live out what was left of her life.  It was Lydia, Alice and John's youngest child and the one who had a difficult relationship with her mother, who had great compassion and care for her mother. Alice's disease brought their relationship back on track.

Still Alice is fantastic book for book clubs, teens interested in reading adult books dealing with specific issues and for those interested in realistic fiction. There are so many issues, especially identity and loss, that can provide the impetus for discussion and debate.  
Book Details:
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
Toronto: Gallery Books 2011
327 pp.