Hi Readers! As you know, I
was in a terrible phase reading bad book after bad book. It’s even worse than
being in a reading slump, to be honest! But, then I read All the Light We
Cannot See, which was the single most amazing piece of literature. It made me
feel so amazing & I felt a lot of feelings while reading it! If there comes
a day, when I am not still overwhelmed by the book, then at that time maybe I
could review it! Not any time soon!
So, after reading that one,
I started reading ‘The Silent Patient’ because it was shorter & a different
genre altogether. I legit completed it in 3 week days! I mention week days specifically
here, because if I had started it on a Saturday, I’d have completed it on the same
day! Here goes its review.
~~INTRODUCTION~~
The Silent Patient is a
psychological thriller & actually a debut novel by Alex Michaelides. It won the Goodreads Choice Awards Best Mystery & Thriller.
It’s the dark & twisted story of a woman named Alicia
Berenson. After many years of happy marriage, one day she shoots her
husband in the head five times & then never speaks a word again. Alicia is
our silent patient.
The novel has 3 parallel
stories. One is by Alicia which is in the form of her diary from a couple of
months prior leading to the day of murder. Second is the part of Theo Faber,
the psychotherapist who treats Alicia. He is also the narrator of it all. Third
part is Theo’s personal life.
~~CHARACTERS~~
When you read a novel like
this where a lot is happening, you always find a three dimensional perspective
towards the characters. Like, how Alicia sees herself when she’s writing her
diary, as against what everyone close to her thinks of her, as against how Theo
sees her. So, you never really know which is the real Alicia until the end. I
think that’s what made it a real page-turner. So, common thing between all the
perspectives is that Alicia is a painter. She loved her husband Gabriel who was
a fashion photographer. She has a history of mental illness which originated
when her mother dies in a car accident in which car Alicia was also there &
followed by her father’s suicide. So, all in all, her childhood was quite
messed up and yet not a good enough foundation for why she would kill her husband
one day.
As for Theo Faber, there is one part of the story where
he treats Alicia. In this part, he seems really determined like it’s a mission for
him to get her to speak. His life at The Grove where Alicia is a patient is
something so ordinarily ‘work’ and yet it turns into something else entirely. I
felt that he was acting less as a psychotherapist and more of a detective. So,
the point of it being a psychological thriller is pretty much missed. As for
his personal life, he has a wife named Kathryn or Kathy. It starts off with how
cute their love story began but it ends on an entirely different note as well.
In such a novel, when there are such unnecessary love stories mentioned, it
bugs me, but I have come to learn that these exist for an important reason.
And, I was right about that. This is in no way a spoiler for seasoned readers,
so please!
While reading it, you will always wonder about things.
Will she speak again?
Can Theo make her talk?
Was she in fact guilty or innocent?
~~OVERALL THOUGHTS~~
I cannot give out any
spoilers on this one, so I’m skipping the ‘Story Line’ part. Overall, I found
the novel to be a bit overrated. It was unpredictable, yes, but given its hype,
I was honestly expecting more! There are a lot of similarities that are
mentioned between Theo & Alicia. And I don’t mean just about their
childhood, their marriage. It’s more about these random incidents early on in
the story. But, that never went anywhere. That I thought were some lose ends.
Also, Theo tends to pile up
all of everyone’s fucked up issues to their childhood. I mean, is that all there
is to psychotherapy? Unresolved childhood problems? Because of this, it didn’t quite
touch on the psychotherapy aspect in depth, or at all.
Having said all this, I think
it was a good debut novel. Even though there were some obvious misses, I have rated it at 3.5/5. The thing I liked was
how it is an unputdownable book. But after reading at a stretch for so long,
the much-awaited twist wasn’t as good as I had hoped. Anyway, I enjoyed reading
most of it. By reading this novel I have now ticked the ‘A Debut Novel’ category form my 2020 Reading Challenge!
Now I have started reading Haruki Murakami’s ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles’! I
will keep you posted on the progress!
Until next time,
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