This is an amazing novel--brutal, unflinching, so needed in our current world. I found the second person voice completely fascinating and the narrative very compelling.

There was something wrong with Leo. Addie knew her 53 year old husband very well and was puzzled by some of his new behaviors. Beginning with the strange things he was seeing from their New York apartment window, Leo started to forget things and to express himself in unusual ways. As a whip smart professor and medical research specialist, he had already selected his doctors for their expertise, and began consultations. First was the opthamologist, next was a neurologist, then the neuropsychiatrist, then the CT scan and the MRI...nothing was wrong with him and all tests came back negative. Alzheimers was ruled out, as was everything else. But that didn't stop the strange behavior, and his university colleagues noticed. Since he was tenured they couldn't fire him, but they gave him medical leave plus his sabbatical at full salary for a year, then he would be forced to retire, but social security doesn't begin until he's 62. Addie is an artist whose medium is collage-how will she keep their apartment on her unreliable commissions?
As two years passed and no one would listen to her including her supposed friends, she was at the end of her rope-she called the suicide hotline. They referred her to a mental health consultant, who, after seeing all of Addie's documentation and quizzing her about Leo, gave a preliminary diagnosis of Lewey body dementia, which proved to be correct. She warned Addie that Leo's decline will be erratic and unpredictable, and that she should prepare to manage an appropriate place for him and to make sure all important papers are in order, including power of attorney, medical instructions and his will. She left her office relieved to finally know, but terrified that she finally knew.
As we follow Addie and Leo's path to the inevitable, we are given a window into a horrible neurological disease which can be worse for the caregiver than the patient. Kirshenbaum doesn't hold back in enumerating Addie's constant battles as she tries to find a suitable place for Leo to live, with a caring staff and a cheerful environment. When she finds the perfect personal aide, it is with relief that he will be well taken care of and a strange feeling of jealousy that Larisa knows what's better for Leo than she does.
The author made an interesting stylistic decision to put the narration of the novel in the second person, as if Addie is being told the story of what happened during those last years with her husband. Who is actually telling the story? Did Addie forget what happened? How long ago did it occur? Is Addie going through a mental crisis of her own? To me, the questions this brings up are another layer to the novel-much to digest here.

4.25 This book broke my heart and shattered me in a way I have not experienced since my dad was diagnosed with cancer. It is honest and brutally beautiful. Go into this one knowing it is going to wreck you and when you put it down, once finished, leave a more understanding person. Highly recommend.

The author writes as an observer (you feel this, you do this) of her own experience. This is the story of Addison's journey with her husband Leo through his symptoms and eventual diagnosis of Lewy Body Dementia. Her writing is extremely personal. Her writing takes the reader into their lives, the forays from doctors to hospitals to assisted care facilities to private nursing. After many poor physicians' diagnoses and horrible hospital stays, Addison finds an amazing caretaker for her husband. Her own work as a visual artist is parallel to this story; she becomes the sole provider since Leo cannot work after his memory and speech are gone.

For anyone dealing with this illness, or premature dementia in a family member, this book as an essential read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Edelweiss Plus for the eARC.