Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

377 reviews

captaincrabs52's review

dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I LOVED this psychological thriller. Gives me vibes of “The Sinner”. Very very good with a plot twist you’ll never see coming

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Car accident, Murder, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Death, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, and Suicide

stephenleininger's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Suicide, Car accident, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Stalking, and Gun violence

shinyfox's review

medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Emotional abuse, Grief, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, Gun violence, Death, Forced institutionalization, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, Domestic abuse, Self harm, Infidelity, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Drug use, Child abuse, Death of parent, Sexual assault, and Car accident

Minor: Addiction, Sexual content, and Alcohol

tanya240's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Self harm, Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Grief, Infidelity, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Stalking, Drug use, Blood, Car accident, Violence, Sexual harassment, Death, Gun violence, Medical content, Suicide, and Toxic friendship

bookwormloverofbooks's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Confinement, Mental illness, Car accident, Infidelity, Murder, and Abandonment

margz25's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Mental illness, Gun violence, Car accident, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Self harm, Murder, and Infidelity

xgabrielle_hx's review

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Gun violence, Murder, Self harm, Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Sexual content, Stalking, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, and Torture

wickedgrumpy's review

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I think I was unknowingly spoiled for this book years ago and had internalized the twist, even though I knew nothing else about the story, which made this pretty disappointing.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Torture, Body horror, Car accident, Child abuse, Classism, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Violence, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Grief, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

chityty's review

mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A quick and enjoyable read that has me looking up more thrillers set in psych hospitals. This is my first and the opportunities presented with the unease one can feel with portrayals of mental illness and psychopathy make me think there are more. 

Book felt meandering with many a side character brought up and not fully fleshed out. People for the sake of suspects. Had 50 pages left and didn’t feel like anything was wrapping up. 

But then it did in a spectacular twist that, though not earth shattering, was executed so well that it is worth the read. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Abandonment, Car accident, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

pupaebug's review

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

This book both entertained me and infuriated me. From the very beginning, I absolutely could not STAND Theo. He speaks with this air of entitlement that makes me feel physically ill. He felt partially like an incel and partially like a self-aggrandizing asshole the entire time. I hated how he felt like he knew Alicia personally, and how he could change her because the two of them were so similar. It was so clear from the start that Theo had a crush on Alicia

and hated Gabriel

.

I also really did not understand how Theo kept getting his way. Is he charismatic? I didn't feel that he was. Why did everyone at the Grove just keep letting him do what he wanted? Why did they trust a new psychoanalyst (not a doctor) about medication but not Christian, a medical doctor with experience with patients such as Alicia and far more mental health training than Theo? Why was Theo so easily able to become Alicia's psychiatrist?

Theo is not some mastermind, he's a creepy impulsive guy

. It was not realistic to have him be able to get his way like this not only in the Grove, but also around the people who knew Alicia like Max, Jean-Felix, and Paul. 

Another thing that infuriated me about this book is Alicia's journal. I've written in a diary on and off for my entire life, and I keep a regular diary now. Alicia's diary is not how normal people write. Normal people write about their own experiences from their perspective, which is distorted by their feelings on the matters they discuss. Diaries are stream-of-consciousness style. No one writes lines of perfect dialogue in their diary followed by novel-style narration. It completely took me out of it and made me think that the diary was fabricated as part of the mystery. That would have been interesting. Even Alicia's diary written in a stream-of-consciousness way, with unreliable and distorted perspectives, would have been interesting for the novel. But alas, we got none of those and it turns out Alex Michaelides just does not know how people keep journals. 

I honestly also just think I've had enough of this incredibly simple, friendly style of narration I see in books published since 2015. This book just sounded like a guy was talking to a friend, and my personal preference is for writing that requires some mental dissection and thought. Theo plainly stated every single thing that he wanted to get through to the reader. While this isn't a bad thing, it made me feel like I was reading a book written for ten-year-olds who haven't developed the ability to understand other people's emotions yet. It was almost insulting as a reader, do I need it spelled out to me that Theo felt sad when he found out Kathy was cheating on him? Am I not trusted to infer a single thing on my own? 

All this aside, the book was entertaining and kept me wanting to keep reading. I was confused by how short the chapters were,

but the twist made it make sense, and I found that satisfying and interesting.

The

nonlinear storytelling

of the novel was cool and made me want to go back and understand just how it was done

. I like how the author played with our assumption that Theo was going to work with Alicia and then home to find out about Kathy cheating, although if you think about it, Theo never mentioned his job at the Grove in the home chapters, and never mentioned the Kathy cheating part in the work chapters.

It was cool.

The twist was interesting. I liked it, and I didn't see it coming. I did kinda jokingly predict that Kathy's lover was Gabriel, especially because we never learned a single thing about Gabriel's life outside of Alicia, and that was fishy. But the actual reason for the murder wasn't great. So Alicia chose to kill her husband because he put his own life over hers with a gun to his head, which reminded her of when her father said something similar when they were kids, causing Alicia to shoot him SIX times in the face and then slit her wrists and never speak again? Girl just get a divorce!!! And she never spoke again because she was inspired by a play she saw ONE WEEK before she killed her husband? not plausible. I will say that at least in the end, I felt vindicated for my hatred of Theo from the start. The entitlement toward Alicia makes (a little bit) more sense when it is revealed that he knew he could get her to talk merely by who he is.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking, Suicide attempt, Blood, Body horror, Car accident, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Gun violence, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Self harm, and Suicide