★★★★☆ - Four Stars
I made a mistake before reading The Silent Patient.
I read the words:
“You won't see the twist coming.”
I hate being told that.
Because from that moment onwards, instead of behaving like a normal reader and enjoying the book, I become an amateur detective.
Was that important?
Why did he say that?
She's suspicious.
He's definitely suspicious.
Perhaps everybody is suspicious.
It's exhausting.
Fortunately, The Silent Patient still managed to keep me thoroughly entertained.
Alicia Berenson appears to have a perfect life. She's a successful painter, married to a well-known fashion photographer, and the couple live in a beautiful house in London.
Then one evening her husband, Gabriel, comes home.
Alicia shoots him five times in the face.
And never speaks another word.
Not to the police.
Not during her trial.
Not to the doctors treating her.
Nothing.
Years later, Alicia is being held at a secure psychiatric facility called the Grove, and psychotherapist Theo Faber becomes determined to work with her. He doesn't simply want to treat Alicia.
He wants to understand why she killed her husband.
That premise had me immediately.
There is something wonderfully unsettling about a character who refuses to speak. Everybody else gets to tell us who Alicia is — the doctors, the police, her relatives, the newspapers — but Alicia herself isn't explaining anything.
And, of course, that means I immediately wanted to know what she wasn't saying.
Theo narrates much of the story, and I liked him at first.
Then I wasn't sure about him.
Then I didn't trust anybody.
This is the problem with psychological thrillers.
They turn perfectly reasonable readers into paranoid lunatics.
The chapters are generally short, which makes this one incredibly easy to race through. I kept telling myself I'd read one more chapter and then discovered I'd somehow read another six.
Michaelides also uses extracts from Alicia's diary, giving us glimpses of her life before Gabriel's murder. I particularly liked these sections because they allow Alicia to have a voice without undermining the central mystery surrounding her silence.
The book isn't particularly action-packed.
Most of the tension comes from conversations, memories, observations and Theo gradually digging into Alicia's past. He begins talking to people who knew her and, inevitably, discovers that the apparently perfect life presented to the outside world wasn't quite as perfect as it looked.
Everyone seems to have something they're not saying.
Which brings us to the twist.
No.
I'm not telling you.
I will say that I had theories.
Lots of theories.
Some were sensible.
Some were increasingly ridiculous.
At one point I think I suspected somebody who barely appeared in the book.
Did I work it out?
Not completely.
I spotted part of what was happening, but Michaelides still managed to pull the rug out from underneath me when everything finally came together.
And I thoroughly enjoyed being wrong.
The ending seems to be the part that divides readers most. The Silent Patient has attracted millions of ratings across reader platforms and won the Goodreads Choice Award for Mystery & Thriller in 2019, but you'll also find plenty of readers who thought the twist was brilliant sitting alongside others who felt the psychology or plotting didn't stand up to closer examination. (goodreads.com)
I can understand both reactions.
If I sit here afterwards and start examining every detail with a magnifying glass, there are things I could question.
But while I was actually reading it?
I couldn't put it down.
And sometimes that's exactly what I want from a thriller.
I don't need every book to change my life.
Sometimes I just want something that makes me ignore the washing, forget what time it is and mutter:
"Oh, you sneaky sod."
The Silent Patient managed that beautifully.
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