The Silent Patient review

- By Alex Michaelides

“I was crying for all of us. 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.”

Alicia Benson, a famous painter, shoots her husband five times in the head and then slits her own wrists to wait for the police. Or at least that's what they say happened. Alicia Bensen hasn’t said anything. Not for years.

Theo Faber, a criminal psychotherapist has waited years to get a chance to work with the silent Alicia and figure out her motive for the unexpected crime committed against the supposed love of her life.

But let us not forget that while Alicia Berenson may be a murderer, she was also an artist.

The moment i heard “psychological thriller” i was captivated by this book. As someone hoping to study psychology in the future I absolutely inhaled every insight they gave me inside Theo Faber’s complicated, riveting and absolutely fascinating mind.

“I believe the same is true for most people who go into mental health. We are drawn to this profession because we are damaged - we study psychology to heal ourselves. Whether we are prepared to admit this or not is another question.”

Despite Alicia not speaking, Alex Michaelides gives us glimpses of her perspective through her diary entries that she wrote before the incident. Every entry drove me deeper into her character and the mystery until I had new questions every chapter and began complaining to my clueless family members about how frustrating life was because I didn't have the answers. It was a good kind of frustration though. The frustration that can easily be mistaken as excitement and the soul deep type of curiosity that pushes you to stay up all night to finish the book despite your classes the next morning.

“We're all crazy, I believe, just in different ways.”

The writing had this certain no nonsense aura to it that I respected immensely. This had a lot to do with Theo’s character. Since most of the book is from his perspective, we dig deep into that constantly running mind of his and further into his roots until I was as curious about him as Alicia if not more. Seeing the world through his eyes is an otherworldly experience. The way even the smallest actions mean something to him. It drove my love for psychology and convinced me to be more aware and conscious of others and my own choices.

“You know, one of the hardest things to admit is that we weren’t loved when we needed it most. It’s a terrible feeling, the pain of not being loved.”

It's an absolutely thrilling experience to witness every element brought into the book fit into a giant board of puzzle pieces until they all connect and make sense. When the mystery is finally revealed, you feel it in your body on a personal level. As if your nerves were bundled up and have finally unravelled. It is no exaggeration when I say I screamed out loud when I found out. Unlike many other thrillers I've read where the endings were rather predictable, this was quite the opposite for me. I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a handful of guesses I was so sure were accurate. All of them were very far from the truth.

“At the time I didn’t understand. But that’s how therapy works. A patient delegates his unacceptable feelings to his therapist; and she holds everything he is afraid to feel, and feels it for him. Then, ever so slowly, she feeds his feelings back to him.”

However, as riveting as this book was, I admit that it started off slightly slowly, and without the promised shock at the end of the book I was reluctant to continue it at the beginning. It gets faster, and with the collaboration of her journals and the present perspective of Theo, we aren't stuck on one thing for too long.

I may be slightly biased because of my absolute fascination with psychology, so if you're not intensely interested in it and are an impatient reader, I can't promise this book will be for you. If you are however, this book will blow your mind. I really hope this review convinces you to read it and if you already have or are planning to drop your opinions and questions in the comments :)