Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

16 reviews

arialovegreen's review

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dark emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I kept seeing this book here and there and gave it a shot. Sometimes the simplest statement is the best: It's *really* good.

I'm not usually one for inconclusive endings, and I'm usually the first to sniff out and predict a plot twist in books but the twist in this one took me very much by surprise. I gasped out loud when the major story reveal occurred, I'll admit.

I took this book down in about a couple of hours of reading. I kept finding myself wondering about the world of Theo and Alicia until I finished. The mystery, the will-they, won't-they of it all kept drawing me in until I saw the story to it's conclusion. Michaelides did an amazing job of pacing the story, and I loved the transposed inclusion of Alicia's diary as the plot progressed to reveal more to us about certain characters and their motives as the story went on. I saw in the back that Michaelides mentioned this was to make the reader more invested/caring of Alicia and it definitely worked. I found myself sympathizing with her more and more as the story went on, despite her present lack of communication. 

I could go on, but the bottom line is (haha): if you are even mildly intrigued by mystery or thriller novels, please pick this one up. It's worth it.

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jgillard4's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Partial spoiler: It felt as though the main characters continued use of Greek mythology in his language and as metaphors revealed the plot by the end. This is what gave away the ending for me, otherwise, it is beautifully written. Michaelides succeeded in writing a quickly paced novel that allowed you to connect to the characters, sympathizing and judging them equally. 

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thekatlouise's review

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dark mysterious sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I hated the twist and ending but the writing did keep me into it the whole time

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edoering's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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brandywyne's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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saskiahill's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0


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rodi_queen's review

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? N/A
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

While I read this book, I found it mildly confusing when we were reading from the leading males perspective, especially in the context of how this was starting to take place over the span of 7 years and instead it just bounces back and forth between the past and present with little to no indication of the time lapse or jump.  

Also the leading female is considered beautiful and almost sexually referenced many times from the male’s perspective even though she is in a psychiatric ward due to killing her husband while she is in the main characters therapeutic care. 

The story it explains is a 5, Alcestis is an under appreciated literary piece in Greek history. The stories use of common reconstructed modern greek religion was a surprisingly pleasant piece of the novel. The Arete with Alicia’s father and husband, Xenia in the process of ritualized friendship explored by the character Jean-Felix and a strong emphasis placed on the two main characters trying to achieve Eudaimonia through freedom mostly and a couple points in self-suffiency. If exercises Greek traditions in that way. 

However, execution needs to be more direct in its timing of the story and the writing could be stronger on the female and male characters alike. In honesty, this book felt as if Alex was banking on the story of Alcestis and Greek culture to really sell his novel. In honesty that’s why I bought it so it worked, I was disappointed overall by how the characters were written and how the story was executed. Otherwise it’s a decent and interesting read. 

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kat_0w0's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25


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anton13's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

First of all I would jus like to say I love the attention to detail this has. Like the way it all connects in the end is amazing. At this point I’ve been staring at the wall for minutes just processing everything that happened. I never saw that coming and I still can’t believe it. I wanted to believe Alicia so much but so much pointed to her but wow ok- I- I’m at a loss of words. I can’t explain how amazing this book is. As things twist and turn I started to have different theories but I could’ve never gotten to the conclusion if they hadn’t just come out and said it at the end like they did. I would’ve never thought them to be who they are. I’m gonna need to take a few more minutes just to really let it sink in how good it actually is. 

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thebookpaiges's review

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dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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