By: Alex Michaelides
“There’s so much pain everywhere, and we just close our eyes to it. The truth is we’re all scared. We’re terrified of each other.”
Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient
*This post contains spoilers for The Silent Patient
Overview:
Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.
The Silent Patient
Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.
Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him….
The Twist
I think it is impossible to recreate everyone’s feelings on the twist when this first came out. All I’ve heard for years is that I had to read this book because the twist was crazy. This ruined the surprise for me. Because I knew that there was this crazy twist that no one expected, the twist became overwhelming and predictable.
I read the book searching for the answer instead of enjoying the story.
The twist itself is good. The narrator is found to be the man stalking Alicia and while he did not kill Gabriel he set the events in motion that led to his death.
When people discuss the twist they are most of the time talking about Theo being the “bad guy” and inserting himself into Alicia’s life to make sure he doesn’t get caught. I think the better twist that more people need to talk about is that Alicia is the murderer. As the reader, you can’t help but to believe that Alicia is innocent. The surprise comes when you find out she did murder her husband.
I wish I had read this book without everyone hyping up the ending. Had I not been expecting something crazy, I would not have suspected Theo was involved somehow.
Hurt People Hurt People
Both Theo and Alicia had faced abuse when they were young. They also shared the betrayal of infidelity as their spouses were having an affair with each other. In the end Theo gives Alicia the tools to kill her husband and attempts to silence her forever by faking and overdose. Alicia kills her husband and has other bouts of violence.
Theo justifies his actions by saying that he never had a chance. Due to his past with his father he was doomed to be a bad person. Even though he saw a therapist he was never able to overcome it. He seems to change his mind slightly towards the end that perhaps he is just evil but mostly blames his actions on his past.
Overall,
The Silent Patient is overall a good book.
I hate the make the Gone Girl comparison but it seems fitting in this case. Just like Gone Girl, the twist hype took away from the reading experience.
I bought this book years ago and it has been sitting unread. I wish I would have read it when it first came out so I could enjoy the book for what it is and not be bogged down by looking for the crazy twist that everyone was so excited about.
Rating: 4/5 stars
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