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ishouldreadthat 's review for:
The Silent Patient
by Alex Michaelides
Originally posted to I Should Read That
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This review is spoiler-free.
You may have already heard buzz about The Silent Patient. Set to be one of the biggest thriller debuts of 2019, this book has so much hype surrounding it already. I can’t claim to be an expert on the thrillers, but I absolutely love reading them and find that a great thriller can be one of the most rewarding reading experiences for me. So did The Silent Patient live up to the hype?
I don’t want to give anything away, so this review will be pretty short. The answer to my above questions is that, well, no it didn’t live up to the hype for me. That’s not to say that The Silent Patient isn’t a good book -- it is an incredibly well-paced page turner that will keep you reading late into the night -- but I didn't think there was anything incredibly unusual or groundbreaking about it. This, however, probably has more to do with my expectations than anything else. The way it is being marketed made me think that it would be a genre-redefining book like Gone Girl was. In reality, The Silent Patient is a pretty standard thriller with the standard twists and turns that a reader expects from thrillers these days. My reaction to the big, twisted ending was ‘huh, interesting’ and nothing more -- I certainly didn’t see it coming, but it didn’t blow me away. I feel that if The Silent Patient was published 3-5 years ago, it would have been a much more explosive book for me.
I liked the characters in this book well enough, particularly Theo, but I didn’t get too attached or invested in any of them. There was something about Alicia’s characterisation that unsettled me, and I don’t think it was intentional. She feels like a hot, empty vessel for the men around her to react to. In this way, she felt so flat and one-dimensional when she should have been intriguing and fascinating. I think this kind of female character just isn’t for me, but on the other hand, character development is difficult when a character never speaks.
Overall, The Silent Patient wasn't necessarily for me, but is worth your time if you decide to pick it up. But is it the next big thing in the genre? Probably not. But it will satisfy the craving for a fast-paced thriller.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This review is spoiler-free.
You may have already heard buzz about The Silent Patient. Set to be one of the biggest thriller debuts of 2019, this book has so much hype surrounding it already. I can’t claim to be an expert on the thrillers, but I absolutely love reading them and find that a great thriller can be one of the most rewarding reading experiences for me. So did The Silent Patient live up to the hype?
I don’t want to give anything away, so this review will be pretty short. The answer to my above questions is that, well, no it didn’t live up to the hype for me. That’s not to say that The Silent Patient isn’t a good book -- it is an incredibly well-paced page turner that will keep you reading late into the night -- but I didn't think there was anything incredibly unusual or groundbreaking about it. This, however, probably has more to do with my expectations than anything else. The way it is being marketed made me think that it would be a genre-redefining book like Gone Girl was. In reality, The Silent Patient is a pretty standard thriller with the standard twists and turns that a reader expects from thrillers these days. My reaction to the big, twisted ending was ‘huh, interesting’ and nothing more -- I certainly didn’t see it coming, but it didn’t blow me away. I feel that if The Silent Patient was published 3-5 years ago, it would have been a much more explosive book for me.
I liked the characters in this book well enough, particularly Theo, but I didn’t get too attached or invested in any of them. There was something about Alicia’s characterisation that unsettled me, and I don’t think it was intentional. She feels like a hot, empty vessel for the men around her to react to. In this way, she felt so flat and one-dimensional when she should have been intriguing and fascinating. I think this kind of female character just isn’t for me, but on the other hand, character development is difficult when a character never speaks.
Overall, The Silent Patient wasn't necessarily for me, but is worth your time if you decide to pick it up. But is it the next big thing in the genre? Probably not. But it will satisfy the craving for a fast-paced thriller.