A review by drkottke
The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick

4.0

It's tempting to tag this as YA, despite the fact that the protagonists are in their mid-30s. The direct, memoir-like writing style and Pat's psychological journey from a Hollywood movie-informed worldview to a more nuanced, mature understanding (and acceptance) of life's messy ambiguities and contradictions are defining features of coming of age narratives. I've read the movie version described as a "dramedy" and the book described as "humorous," but those seem to me to be pretty deceptive descriptors of the reading experience, which is more often than not a painful view of mental and emotional illness from the inside out. It's also an exemplar of the power of an unreliable narrator.