Erioluwa Akin-Salami, Contributor
I started “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides twice.
The first time, I read a few chapters and dropped it. A couple of months later, I gave the book another chance. Now, I can confidently say giving this book a second chance was one of the best decisions I have ever made.
What hooked me was that every time I brought the book outside, someone would ask, ‘Have you gotten to the plot twist?’ I began to wonder, for a book that starts slow, what could change so much that it leaves every reader baffled and advocating for it? I simply had to find out. Anyone who loves trying to guess the plot twist in a book would thoroughly enjoy this murder mystery.
“The Silent Patient” begins like a blurred picture, and the more you read, the clearer your vision becomes. And yes, the plot twist had my jaw on the floor.
There was a concept I learned in psychology that explains that when the brain does not have the answer to something, it fills it in with prior knowledge to make complete sense of what it is looking at, reading, or trying to understand.
Michaelides, the main protagonist, uses this to his advantage.
If you are an avid book reader, there are so many things that you presume to be true. Maybe commonly you expect a certain setting, a particular time, or an exact scenery. You might not think filling in the blanks this way is detrimental (or even relevant), but Michaelides shows it has such a big impact.
By the end of the book, you are left skimming the beginning pages all over again, wondering how you could make such a silly presumption.
I have always been in love with the “unreliable narrator” plot line, in which a narrator appears to be lying to the reader. And this plot line compels the reader to handpick the truth out of the narrator’s hay pile of lies.
In a line of unreliable narrator books, “The Silent Patient” takes the cake because, even though you do not trust the narrator, you want to. He shares his trauma with you, discusses how he wants to become a better person and by the middle of the book you are hoping he is not lying (despite the fact that he heavily suggests he is).
He is going through so much while claiming all he wants to do is help the character, Alicia. With how convincing he is, you root for him and hope he turns out to be the hero and not the villain.
The number of morally grey characters in the book is the perfect amount for me, and there were a lot. In fact, almost every character was “good” but had some terrible secret, or they did something wrong for a reason that seemed almost noble.
The whole book, you wonder why Alicia kills her husband and even wonder if she actually did. However, all of a sudden the plot twist hits, and the picture becomes clear. Then, you catch yourself thinking, ‘Is she all that bad?’
In all, “The Silent Patient” is a beautifully complex murder mystery that not only tricks the reader but also compels them to face difficult topics such as childhood trauma, abuse, addiction and so much more.
What I got out of this book, and what I hope everyone else who reads it gains as well, is that no matter who you are, no matter what has happened to you, negatively projecting your trauma onto others can end terribly.
Instead of letting yourself hurt others, in words taken directly from the book, get help and “Break free from your past. Free yourself from endlessly repeating it.”