The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

Cover Art Courtesy of Goodreads

I picked this for my January Book of the Month, expecting a really intriguing mystery/thriller. Unfortunately it just wasn't quite what I had hoped. 

In The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, famous painter Alicia Berenson is in a psych hospital after apparently killing her husband. I say apparently because Alicia refuses to speak. She has not uttered a word since her husband was killed, in her defense or otherwise. Now, psychotherapist Theo Faber has made Alicia his personal pet project, hoping to finally get her to speak and learn the truth about what really happened that day.

There was a pretty good twist in this book, but unfortunately it wasn't enough for me to completely save the rating. This book was very dry, and I was more interested in Alicia's interspersed journal entries than the actual plot parts. I thought it ended way too abruptly. I didn't like any of the characters, and didn't really care what the outcome was. 

I've seen a ton of people giving this really high ratings, but this was far from a 5 star thriller in my opinion. It just wasn't very special, and didn't live up to the caliber of some of my other favorite mystery thrillers. I would have given it 2 stars, except I did really enjoy the twist and didn't see it coming.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars

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