I read "Still Alice", though I haven't yet seen the movie.  However, as Julianne Moore won best actress, it did serve to advertise the book for me.

I found the book somewhat difficult to put down - haven't had a good read in a little while.  I think the story "worked" as the main character, named Alice, was a university psychology professor, though at Harvard, not sessionally at the University of Windsor.  

Having someone who has made a career with her ideas and speech going through dementia was a very good choice to be made.  It made the loss more "quantitative" than might be otherwise, and enabled Alice to be eloquent and detailed about what was happening, until she couldn't any more.

I'd highly recommend it.  Though the progression is predictable, though faster than I'd have imagined, it does paint a more positive picture from the perspective of the patient than the nightmare it appears from the "outside".  The title "Still Alice" fits, there is a core that remains, and some of the stages seem to be freeing, to some degree, as you are able to see things from a unique perspective - an outsider in your own life.  Her opinions of her children, particularly the youngest whom, by her own pre-morbid admission, admits to not having bonded as much with, are very positive - the beautiful young woman or the powerful actress -it would be nice to assume that your parents would like you if you met, not "stuck" loving you because you were born there.