Alex Michaelides’ debut thriller soared to every bestseller list in 2019. Here’s my spoiler-sprinkled review almost five years after its release.
November’s here! As I sit here, exhausted after yesterday’s Halloween fun (our neighborhood was hoppin’ with trick-or-treaters, and my family loved it!) and trying to chase it away with coffee coffee coffee, I’ve decided to bring one last book review to cap off the Spooky Season. (Shhh! Let’s try to pretend it’s still October.)
I’ve managed to not only not read this book that’s been screamed at me by every social media platform, marketing email, and fellow book lover, but I’ve managed to not be spoiled – which is an amazing feat in the Age of Aquarius Social Media. The only thing I’d really hear about this book is how polarizing it was. People either loved it or hated it. With the help of a local book club I’m a part of, I finally got my booty in gear and read this bad boy. Let’s dive in with a quick synopsis, shall we?
The novel centers on our two characters: Alicia Berenson and Theo Faber. Alicia currently resides at a secure forensic hospital for the criminally charged due to being found guilty of shooting her husband. In the face. A lot. Immediately after the crime she stopped speaking to anyone, creating a much larger mystery around the famous artist than just a “domestic dispute turned deadly.”
Theo Faber is a psychotherapist that has been interested in Alicia Berenson’s case for years. He finally gets a chance to take on her case when he gets a new job at the Grove, the facility where Alicia resides. As he manages to take on Alicia one-on-one, Theo is consumed by the mystery around Alicia and will do anything to “fix her” by getting her to talk and explain why she committed the grisly murder. A wife in a seemingly perfect marriage wouldn’t just suddenly tie her husband up and shoot him point-blank… would she?
Alright, I’ll be talking about some spoilers throughout. They be a-sprinklin’, so I’m going to put in the warning now instead of being like, “Spoiler here! Okay, spoiler done. Oop, spoiler here too!”
Okay, here’s the skinny: I needed to ruminate on this for a few days because I didn’t really know how to take that ending. First impression was that it felt cheap and almost… tacky? All this over an affair? This man really goes from zero to “let’s just stalk everyone, which will help me eventually find proof my wife is cheating AND who she’s cheating with.”
Theo also goes full detective-mode when it comes to figuring out Alicia’s story and the reason for her silence. He goes to her family, her former lawyer, the curator of the gallery she used to work with. (Her BFF according to the curator.) So maybe that’s what psychotherapists do? IDK, I don’t know much about that field, maybe there’s supposed to be some real-life PI work lol.
There’s a decent amount of red herrings in this book; almost too many. Seemed like everyone in Alicia’s life sucked. That was an issue I had. How can everyone just be this sucky? How can she have a mother that tried to kill her? How can she have a father who – if given the choice – have his wife live over his own daughter? How is her aunt so ghastly? In a way it’s almost too much. I don’t know if it’s me being new(ish) to the genre, but they were almost caricatures of themselves.
I did enjoy being in Alicia’s head through her diary. I was intrigued by the slip-ups she had. Her “intrusive thoughts”, if you will. It was a nice little glimpse into her psyche and how – even though her husband Gabriel was killed off-page – Alicia would and could have the ability and mental motivation to shoot her own husband. I don’t mean a literal motive (her husband’s affair), but the physical and visceral motivation to pick up a gun and shoot the man you supposedly love in the head. The knowledge of the affair may have been the obvious camel-straw, but there was more to it. Alicia is not well.
Regarding the ending: honestly, it escalates so quickly! We were all like, “La de da, Theo’s going around talkin’ to folks.” Then it goes to, “Wait, what? Theo’s the cause? Theo’s trying to frame his co-worker? Theo put Alicia and Gabriel in that position, giving Alicia the opportunity to grab the gun and pull the trigger? Theo then tried to get Alicia out of the picture? Whaaa?”
Theo’s motivations stemmed from one thing: his wife’s affair. He wouldn’t have become obsessed with Alicia and her silence if he never knew her role in the messy situation in the first place. See, the man Theo’s wife was seeing behind his back was, in fact, Gabriel – Alicia’s husband! Double affair action! Eyooo. Not cool, people. Not. Cool.
Theo’s obsession with finding out about his wife’s affair led to many lives ruined, including his own. He couldn’t finish the job of offing Alicia – the reason being how she finally recognized who he was and could expose him – and ended up being exposed anyway through Alicia’s diary. (Which was an amusing part to me; “Oh no, I’ve been poisoned with an overdose of morphine and I’m dying, lemme just grab my diary and jot down some stuff…”)
The ending is rather ambiguous though. After Alicia’s overdose, she didn’t manage to die and is now in a coma. Because of this, a detective has come to the Grove to investigate. Theo, trying to kill two birds with one stone with Alicia’s diary, has failed to find it. Instead it ends up in the hands of the detective, who uses it to figure out what happened to Alicia and that she pointed the finger at Theo. The story ends with the detective going to Theo’s house to read the final entry in Alicia’s diary. The entry that Theo never knew existed and therefore never read…
I like this final scene because while Alicia wrote exactly what happened and who tried to kill her, this is still a woman who hasn’t spoken a single word in years. A woman who’s been locked up in a hospital for criminals in BFE North London and was convicted of murdering her husband. The ending implies that the detective may believe Alicia, and we as the reader know for sure Theo did it, but would others believe Alicia’s story? She’s been the “silent patient” for so long, and now she’s the permanent silent patient. Is her story credible? Would she have enough sympathy regardless of being in a coma? Could Theo talk his way out of this? Talking’s his jam after all. I’m sure in the end Theo’s screwed, but I see it taking a long time for that detective.
I originally gave this book 3.5 stars, but after my period of marinating, I’d be good with bumping this up to 4 stars. Not a huge jump, but I’m super nice and giving books 3 stars is when I’m pretty disappointed. I’m definitely not in either camp of I HATED IT or I LOVED IT, but firmly in the middle. It’s a decent book and I can see it being a popular book. A great debut novel from Michaelides for sure. I’ll probably read more from him.
Have you read “The Silent Patient”? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! While I got some different perspectives from my book club peeps, I’d love to see more.
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