[Book Review] The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides is a dark and twisted tale about passion and obsession. I have to say right off the bat, that I have never read a book that made me feel the way that this one did.

Let’s dive in to my review!

My Thoughts on The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Theo Faber is a psychotherapist and he has set his sights on Alicia Berenson, a patient at the Grove who went silent after killing her husband. Theo is determined to get Alicia to speak. But as the unit is on the brink of being shut down, will he get her to speak in time? Or if she does speak, will they like what she has to say?

This book was a very interesting read for me. When I read the last page and closed the book, I had to sit there for a moment. I don’t think I have ever read anything similar to this book before. I felt so very unsettled the entire time I was reading. There was just something I was feeling about the main character, Theo, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.

There were three main elements of the story;

1.  Alicia Berenson’s Diary where we got a glimpse into her personal life from her perspective.
2. Theo while he was at work the hospital with Alicia.
3. Theo in his personal life.

This story is a bit like a puzzle that seems like it is missing some pieces… up until the very end when the pieces are found and put into place. Only at the very end did everything come together for me and I realized what I had been feeling all along…

Unfortunately, as cryptic as that is, that’s all I can say! I just don’t want to give anything away.

My Favorite Passages from The Silent Patient

The bare trees stood like skeletons along the road. The sky was white, heavy with snow that had yet to fall.

It was obvious not much had been spent on the upkeep of the building in several years: paint was crawling away from the walls, and a faint musty smell of mildew and decay permeated the corridors.

And this would take time- nothing would be accomplished overnight. It would move slowly, like a glacier, but it would move.

Love that doesn’t include honesty doesn’t deserve to be called love.

She had been like a closed book to me; now that book was open and it’s contents had taken me altogether by surprise.

My Final Thoughts on The Silent Patient

If you enjoy books that have you feeling a bit unsettled throughout though you can’t really put a finger on why you’re feeling that way… I highly recommend this book for you!

I will conclude with one last comment: I considered DNFing this book because it was seriously rubbing me the wrong way. I was thinking about rating this book as two stars, until the last few pages and then, it jumped up. The only reason why it didn’t get a full five stars from me is because I save my five-stars for books I know I am going to reread time and time again. While I definitely want to reread this one at least once more, I’m not sure how many times I would be able to reread it.

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