I avoided this book for a long time, though I'm not exactly sure why. I think the premise (or at least what I understood to be the premise) reminded me of a book I read last year that was so horribly executed I felt very little inclination to get into something similar again. Who wants another lousy memory loss story, anyway? Well, put me in the "wrong again, asshole!" category because where the first book failed, converting an otherwise interesting idea into cheesy mindless schlock, this one delivered just fine. 
 It is the story of Alice Howland, a professor of psychology at Harvard University who, at the height of her research career, slowly begins exhibiting signs of early-onset dementia. Attributing her symptoms to stress or exhaustion at first, she eventually learns that she carries a gene mutation responsible for Alzheimer's and is already well into the early stages of the disease. Knowing the gene mutation is autosomal dominant (meaning she only needs one copy of the gene to express the disease), each of her three children stands a 50% chance of inheriting the disease as well. The knowledge of this, on top of her own losses of stature, confidence, and ultimately her independence, serves only to compound the agony. 
 It is not all perfect, of course. The book is fairly breezy, refusing to delve much past the expected feelings of frustration, loneliness, and confusion that accompanies Alzheimer's, and it often times felt rather clinical and pamphlet-y. But I am a giant nerd--I like clinical and pamphlet-y when the subject matter is in my realm of interests. Regardless, the book serves a purpose. It strikes the reader as remaining fairly true to the experiences of someone beginning to lose the required synapses necessary to retain memory and cognitive function--my second grader would call this "realistic fiction"--and as of its publication, it is in fact the only novel ever to have been endorsed by the Alzheimer's Association. 
 And what I'm saying here is that I guess I am endorsing it a little bit, too.