A psychological thriller and a mystery with a twist that will make you gasp when you find out. Well written and nicely paced. This is a first novel for Alex. It takes place in a mental hospital as a doctor tries to unravel the murder of a woman through the therapy of the person accused of the murder. ( )

This book, I am screaming WTF! joking I had my theories but yes this book is freaking amazing.. I started reading it last night and finished it today , soon as I got home from work. I am looking for other books by this author because talk about psychological thriller, this book really has you thinking what in the actually F. I don't even have words to fully articulate how much I love this book, and to my fellow thriller fans or psychological thriller fans this is a must read.

I am not even joking when I say I had like 4 or 5 different theories going on in my head, I did get one correctly but still by the time I got to the end my heart was racing so much I thought I was going to have a panic attack, one that I would be okay with.

I needed this 5 star read!! ( )

This was a fun book! I am not generally caught off-guard by a plot twist or surprise ending, but The Silent Patient surprised me. I found it odd that some people really did not appreciate the book for what it was; others, like me, raved about it. I sit in the latter camp.

Every person has a breaking point, and every relationship is only as true as it is behind closed doors - what you see on the outside may not be what is really happening on the inside.

If you enjoy a good psychological thriller, give The Silent Patient a go; it’s worth your time. ( )

Fantastic read! Honestly it’s not hard to figure out part of the ending but I certainly didn’t have it all sorted and it was an excellent twist. I really enjoyed Michaelides writing and the short chapters made it seem like a quick read. Great first novel and I hope he writes more. ( )

Jeez crumpets, what a miserable collection of flat, awful characters this was. No one was likeable or compelling. I call bullshit on a lot of the "psychotherapy" that happens here, and especially on the attitudes of the doctors and the way the ward is run. (Is this because of the unreliable narrator? Maybe? Who cares?) The story tripped along, but I never felt terribly engaged or particularly confident that I was going to be happy I stuck around to see how it came out. The twist made me go "Wait. Huh? Oh. I guess?" It felt tricksy and cheatsy instead of well-crafted. I felt like the author was being manipulative rather than performing excellent misdirection. What I *thought* was going on was a lot more compelling to me (and less outright twisty) than what really was. And even though I felt cheated by the twist, I'm not even particularly annoyed? It doesn't even rise to that. I shrugged at the thing generally, I shrugged at the twist, and now I shrug at the manipulation. For book club, or I probably would have stopped bothering about halfway through. ( )

How do you make a best-selling novel out of a story in which the main character, other than the narrator, remains silent? Alex Michaelides found a way in “The Silent Patient” (2019).

Alicia Berenson, a gifted artist, is arrested for murdering her husband by shooting him in the face while he was tied to a chair. Questions remain, like how did she manage to tie him to the chair before shooting him? But she refuses to answer them or to say anything at all. For years.

Theo Faber is a 42-year-old psychotherapist determined to find answers, if not from Alicia then from others who knew her before the killing. Thus the novel becomes part psychological thriller and part murder mystery.

Theo has personal problems of his own. He discovers that his beautiful wife is secretly meeting with another man. Rather than confronting her, he follows her, as well as the man she is having the affair with. He contemplates murder. Here the otherwise original novel becomes cliche — the psychotherapist may be as crazy as the patient.

Things begin to come into focus when a silent Alicia hands Theo her secret diary, and at last she begins to speak. But Michaelides holds the final surprises for the exciting climax.

This is a nearly first-rate novel that deserves its best-selling status. ( )

Alicia is found standing over her husband's body with blood all over her and a smoking gun in her hand. The cops charge her with murder. She does not say anything at all. She is remanded to a psychiatric hospital instead of prison. Theo is a psychotherapist who hopes to help her speak again so she can tell what happened the night her husband was murdered.

Wow! I did not think I was going to like this as I am not a big fan of psychological thrillers, but I LOVED it! I don't want to tell too much because I don't want to ruin it. The writing is phenomenal. It draws you in from the first page. There is so much about the book that I liked and that shocked me. Never saw some of this stuff coming.

WORTH THE READ! ( )

Very quickly the book, which I thought would focus on the patient, turned in another direction as it focused on the therapist. I wasn’t sure where it was going until revealed near the end. A really good, well-written read. ( )

Wow! First off, thank you to Celadon Books for sending me the Advanced Reader Copy of this book. This book is due to be published February 5, 2019. Definitely a must read!

Alicia Berenson is an artist married to a photographer, Gabriel. When Gabriel is found murdered and Alicia is standing next to the body with blood on her clothes, she is immediately the main suspect in Gabriel's murder. However, she becomes mute and does not speak. Alicia becomes a (silent) patient at the Grove, a treatment center where Theo Faber is employed and becomes her therapist to get her to talk and to find out why she murdered her husband. ( )

Couldn't put down. Read in a day and a half! ( )

2.5/5 big simp protagonist, half baked characters, cheesy writing and an even cheesier twist ( )

Flat characters. Unrealistic behaviors. Twists feel forced. ( )

Thriller

I read this without knowing a thing about it. As someone who finds psychology and the arts to be interesting, I enjoyed reading this book as it examined both topics.

While I saw it marketed as a thriller, I didn't get that feeling until quite late in the book, but I would call it a mystery with perhaps a some suspense for the impatient reader. I was quite content to let the story unfold but I did read the book quite quickly. While I wasn't entirely surprised by the ending (possibly because of my taste for psychological thrillers), I did appreciate it. Id' recommend this if you like mysteries and ventures into the human psyche. ( )

A neatly woven, compelling story, with a twist. ( )

This was a good read as far as psychological thrillers/mysteries are concerned. It was a “I did not see that coming” kind of book. ( )

What the…..Fu@&!!! This book! Wheeeee! I couldn’t put it down. Finally a good thriller. Finally a good surprise. Intellectual writing, characters and situations. YES! ( )

I gave this 5 stars strictly due to the ending. I will admit as I was reading the book I found myself wondering what all of the fuss was about. It was ok, but nothing earth-shattering. The ending, however, took me completely by surprise. Definitely worth the time to read. ( )

My book club chose this book to read in January 2024. It's an interesting psychological thriller and it should provide lots of good discussion at our meeting.

The Silent Patient is Alicia Berenson. Some years ago she was found in her living room holding a gun with her husband, Gabriel, dead of a gunshot wound and bound to a chair in front of her. She hasn't spoken a word since then. She was found not guilty by means of diminished responsibility and sent to The Grove, a psychiatric hospital for women criminals. During her trial, psychotherapist Theo Farber watched fascinated. He also attended the gallery showing for a painting that Alicia painted while she was awaiting trial. The painting is called Alcestis after a Greek tragedy in which Alcestis accepts death in place of her husband and when she is brought back from death she cannot speak. Theo applies for a job at The Grove so that he can attempt to treat Alicia. Since Alicia will not speak to him Theo interviews those who were closest to her and Gabriel. All of them tell him that Alicia was very much in love with her husband and that it is hard to believe that she killed him. Theo is the narrator of the book so he goes into his own background to explain how he came to psychotherapy and something of his own life. He is married to an American who is an actress so it doesn't appear that his interest in Alicia is romantic. However, he accidentally learned that his wife was committing adultery although he doesn't know who the man is. He pursues learning more with something of the same singlemindedness that he tries to learn about Alicia. The two threads come together in an astonishing reveal at the end.

It surely can't be any accident that Alicia's name is so close to the heroine of the Greek tragedy. And that's not the only Greek connection. The head of The Grove is Diomedes who is Greek. And even the narrators name, Theo, comes from Greek meaning God's gift. ( )

A clever twist at the end. Sarah recommended to read. ( )

I wasn't as engaged in this as I have been in some of our recent audiobooks. This was highly recommended by a patron of the library. I'm not sure I'll be following their suggestions in future. It was alright, but I didn't have any feelings for the characters. A puzzle without fair clues it seemed to me. ( )

This book took me a while to really get into, but once I did I devoured it. But I AM SHOOK OMFG ( )

Great.

Kind of ridiculous story. Patients in a locked ward can carry around broken pool sticks? Etc etc I feel like this book was way over-hyped. ( )

Who knew the therapist Theo was the one who was the stranger watching Alicia. He just wanted her to see that her husband Gabriel was cheating on her with his wife. He had no idea she was unstable. ( )