Silent Patient- Book Review

In this Blog I will be sharing my views on the Novel called Silent Patient without giving any spoilers. But before going straight into the review part we will read some background information about this book and its Author.

Author:

The Author of Silent Patient is Alex Michaelides. At first I didn't believe that this novel is his debut novel because, the details of the story and the characters were curated very beautifully.

Here are some extra information about the Author:

Alex Michaelides was born and raised in Cyprus. He has a MA in English Literature from Trinity College, Cambridge University, and a MA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. The Silent Patient was his first novel.

Plot of the story:

The Silent Patient is the gripping tale of Alicia Berenson, a happily married artist who murders her husband and never speaks again. Forensic psychotherapist Theo Faber sets out to unravel the mystery of Alicia’s notorious crime and quickly discovers that nothing about her case is as clear-cut as it seems.

In order to get Alicia to talk and help him investigate the murder of Gabriel (Alicia's husband), Theo Faber embarks on a dramatic and exciting journey in this book.

About Alicia

Alicia is an artist who loves to make paintings. She had a very great relations with her husband but, things didn't go the way you want them to be. One day Alicia observed a man standing outside her house. At first she didn't gave much attention to him. After some day, she again saw the same man standing outside her house, she got bit scared. She even told about this event to Gabriel but, he did not believed her and told her that she is imagining things.

This is only one of the incident which Alicia was experiencing, there were many more such incidents which made her lifeless from inside.

After the murder of her Husband (Gabriel), she stops speaking entirely and is placed in the Grove, a secure psychiatric unit where Theo applies for a job six years later — expressly to meet, and treat, the still-silent Alicia.

My view

When I started reading this novel I wasn't sure if this book has any interesting plot except that Alicia is a silent patient and she has never spoken after the death of her husband. I would say this book was a slow burn as initially it was quite difficult to read it in one go because there were so many information, background story of the characters and Alicia past etc.

As I was arriving towards the end of the story, I thought I will be able guess the plot of the story before it ends but, Alex Michaelides did great job in engaging the reader during last part of the book without revealing the plot.

I would rate this book 4 out of 5 because I am bit disappointed by the ending of the story. Overall it is a great read if you are looking for some slow burning suspense novel, where you think that you almost got the plot of the story but you didn't.

I would say go for this one, you will not regret it.

Happy Reading✨