It made the reading experience interesting for me. There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ characters in this novel, All have some shades of grey in them. There are little reveals here and there, enough to make you wonder who is the unreliable narrator here. Theo and Alicia are richly-layered characters.
But that’s not the case with The Silent Patient. Some novels, despite having good story lines, have lost that element of intrigue due to badly written characters. It sounds simple, but as a reader, I am sure you know how important good characterisation is to a novel. Though The Silent Patient is a contemporary novel it has layers of Gothic undertones. It’s a compelling tale of love, loss and revenge. The characters and the plot are unpredictable and you won’t see the twists coming. That’s what makes this a good psychological thriller. The Silent Patient is the very definition of a page-turner. There are little twists at every turn and some interesting questions come up during the course of events happening in the novel. There are many layers to the story which I found interesting.
The Silent Patient is a taut, fast-paced thriller with an intriguing story-line. But the truth is not so easy and threatens to consume them both. He is obsessed with her case and wants to help her desperately, Theo is determined to get Alicia talking and unravel the mystery surrounding the murder. Here Alicia comes across Theo Faber, a psychotherapist who has waited a long time to treat Alicia. Meanwhile, the silent Alicia is remanded to a secure mental institution called The Grove. The price of Alicia’s paintings sky rocket and people gather in her friend’s art gallery to view the painting she made just after the murder. It becomes a mystery which catches the public eye and casts her into notoriety. She has been silent for over six years now.Īlicia’s silence gives this domestic tragedy a deeper, mysterious meaning. One day Gabriel comes home, late from a shoot, and Alicia shoots him at point-blank range and never speaks a single world again. She is married to Gabriel, a famous fashion photographer. She is a gifted painter and her life seems to be perfect. The Silent Patient in this thriller is Alicia Berenson. I thought ‘why not’? I’ll tell you why not! The Silent Patient is a novel you won’t forget so easily, an absolute page-turner which will keep you at the edge of your seat. I saw it in the ‘new releases’ section in Amazon and I was intrigued by the blurb. I just cannot find the right words to describe this thriller. It took me a week to write this book review. I am stunned after reading The Silent Patient.
Mental illness is precisely about a lack of this kind of integration – we end up losing contact with the unacceptable parts of ourselves.” A very clever book - highly recommended.“We are made up of different parts, some good, some bad, and a healthy mind can tolerate this ambivalence and juggle both good and bad at the same time.
I have never been so happily wrong-footed. "I was kicking myself black and blue that I did not see *that* moment coming. The twist comes as hard and fast as a slap across the face." - John Marrs Masterfully plotted and brilliantly paced by a writer at the top of his game." - Cara Hunter "One of the best thrillers I've read this year. "An excellent, slow-burning psychological thriller sharp, clever and with a whammy that genuinely took me by surprise (it takes a lot to do this). I read it in a state of intense, breathless excitement and never saw the ending coming. I told myself I'd just dip in eleven hours later - it's now 5.47 AM - I've finished it, absolutely dazzled." - A J Finn This extraordinary novel set my blood fizzing - I quite literally couldn't put it down. The Silent Patient is a swarming, paranoid nightmare of a novel with an ending that is destined to go down as one of the most shocking, mind-blowing twists in recent memory." - Blake Crouch "Alex Michaelides has written one of the best psychological thrillers I have ever read. "Smart, sophisticated suspense - a very fine novel by any standard." - Lee Child "Genuinely chilling and with a real sucker punch of a twist." - Sharon Bolton The pages will burn with the friction from your hands turning them." - David Baldacci I read it in two nights and savored every luscious word, every grim encounter, every startling twist. Michaelides has crafted a totally original, spellbinding psychological mystery so quirky, so unique that it should have its own genre. "The Silent Patient sneaks up on you like a slash of intimidating shadow on a badly lit street.