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A review by alexblackreads
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
2.0
I heard nothing but good things about this book until I read it, then it seemed like everyone I knew had a negative opinion that I fully agreed with. This was just not it.
Some things that irritated me in no particular order (because I'm feeling too lazy to structure this like a nice review):
-The narration. The main character was so annoying. Unlikable I can handle. I love a good unlikable character, a twisted creep, someone who's just awful, or stupid, or whatever. But this dude was just annoying and boring. It felt like the interesting story was happening from a different perspective and he had weird self insert vibes. I found this grating right from the first fifteen pages.
-The terrible/inaccurate representation of mental health. Just on so many levels. I do not understand how Michaelides has a background in mental health and still filled this book with misleading, harmful, and down right factually incorrect information. None of this is how mental health works. In certain elements I do believe it was intentionally poorly done, but it went beyond that.
-The silence of Alicia. If you want to have a character be silent as part of your narrative structure, and rely entirely on her not having a voice, don't include a bunch of diary entries that then give her a voice. It's lazy and cheap and negates the most important element of the story. Alicia has a very strong voice and perspective throughout the whole book. She just sometimes doesn't talk.
-The ridiculous number of plot holes. I get thrillers need some degree of suspension of disbelief, but this woman went from prison to a psych ward (for dangerous inmates) and somehow managed to sneak in a diary (totally by herself, no outside help) no one ever knew about? Like how? Please explain the logistics here. There were so many things ranging from large to small that just couldn't happen.
-It's entirely about a woman from a man's POV. Okay, this one wasn't actually terribly done compared to the others, but it's so tiresome to read yet another book that's about a woman almost entirely told through the male gaze. If a book is going to do that, I want it to be better than fine. I want it to be unique or beautiful or something that makes it worthwhile. And this was more of the same.
I hated this. It was such a quick read, but that's about it's only saving grace. It's just doing the same tired old tropes, but it's doing them so poorly. I'm honestly mad that I fell for the hype because this felt like the biggest waste of time. At least the other books I've hated this year were interestingly terrible. This couldn't even manage that.
Some things that irritated me in no particular order (because I'm feeling too lazy to structure this like a nice review):
-The narration. The main character was so annoying. Unlikable I can handle. I love a good unlikable character, a twisted creep, someone who's just awful, or stupid, or whatever. But this dude was just annoying and boring. It felt like the interesting story was happening from a different perspective and he had weird self insert vibes. I found this grating right from the first fifteen pages.
-The terrible/inaccurate representation of mental health. Just on so many levels. I do not understand how Michaelides has a background in mental health and still filled this book with misleading, harmful, and down right factually incorrect information. None of this is how mental health works. In certain elements I do believe it was intentionally poorly done, but it went beyond that.
-The silence of Alicia. If you want to have a character be silent as part of your narrative structure, and rely entirely on her not having a voice, don't include a bunch of diary entries that then give her a voice. It's lazy and cheap and negates the most important element of the story. Alicia has a very strong voice and perspective throughout the whole book. She just sometimes doesn't talk.
-The ridiculous number of plot holes. I get thrillers need some degree of suspension of disbelief, but this woman went from prison to a psych ward (for dangerous inmates) and somehow managed to sneak in a diary (totally by herself, no outside help) no one ever knew about? Like how? Please explain the logistics here. There were so many things ranging from large to small that just couldn't happen.
-It's entirely about a woman from a man's POV. Okay, this one wasn't actually terribly done compared to the others, but it's so tiresome to read yet another book that's about a woman almost entirely told through the male gaze. If a book is going to do that, I want it to be better than fine. I want it to be unique or beautiful or something that makes it worthwhile. And this was more of the same.
I hated this. It was such a quick read, but that's about it's only saving grace. It's just doing the same tired old tropes, but it's doing them so poorly. I'm honestly mad that I fell for the hype because this felt like the biggest waste of time. At least the other books I've hated this year were interestingly terrible. This couldn't even manage that.