The Silent Patient is a psychological novel by Alex Michaelides, first published in 2019. The story revolves around Alicia Berenson, a young talented painter. She's married to Gabriel, a photographer, who supports her and whom she loves with all her heart. They lived a happy life together when one night a gunshot was heard from the couple's house and the husband was found tied in a chair with his head riddled with multiple bullets to the head. The police found Alicia standing beside the corpse, holding the gun. Ever since that night, Alicia seemingly closed her heart and never utter a single word again. Years later, a young psychiatrist, Theo, was moved by her story and decided to work in the institution where Alicia was being taken care of to try to discover the truth behind her silence.
This book is really fast-paced. There's almost no second wasted to breath as Theo, our protagonist, endlessly shifted from one clue to another in an effort to help Alicia. Sometimes as a psychiatrist, but mostly more like a detective. At some level I appreciate the super-focused storytelling that the author was exercising here, but I can't help but noticing some steps the author was trying to skip in presenting the story in a logical manner. You can't help but to notice that the world seemed to bow down to everything that Theo's trying to do. There's little to no resistance between him and his goal. The pacing also takes away the opportunity to develop good misdirections and satisfying end to some subplots.
The best thing about the book is probably the ending twist. I think it's delivered excellently and really came out of nowhere. The last chapters of the book are really well-written in building up to that moment and finally revealing the truth. It saves another complaint I have about this book, which is the fact that all of the characters are quite annoying and hard to emphatize with, even the protagonist and Alicia herself. The ending offers a somewhat satisfying justification for that one complaint, which is nice, I guess.
Other than the twist, I don't think I can think of another good thing to say about this book. I guess there are some psychological depths that I missed, but they're sometimes overshadowed by everything else going on in the story.
