The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides was one of my January Book of the Month picks. As far as first novels go, Alex Michaelides did not disappoint. The Silent Patient hooked me until the last page.
The Gist
Alicia and Gabriel Berenson have a picture perfect life. Gabriel is an in-demand photographer. Alicia is a famous painter. Both are beautiful, creative, and desperately in love with the other. Alicia and Gab are #relationshipgoals. At least they were until their dream marriage ended in a bloody nightmare. Five shots to the face later, the police arrive at the scene to find a dead Gabriel and a stunned Alicia.
The case of the beautiful woman murdering her amazing husband in cold blood becomes an instant hit in the media. The public’s fascination with her story skyrockets the value of Alicia’s artwork and makes her infamous overnight. However, none of this concerns Alicia. In fact, she has nothing to say about it at all. Initially, her silence just leaves many unanswered questions. Eventually, it lands Alicia in a secure psychiatric unit.
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Time passes and Alicia is all but forgotten by the world. She fades into the background surrounded by her own silence. Written off as hopeless and drugged out of her mind, Alicia is left to her life in the psych unit. Fortunately, Theo Faber, a criminal psychotherapist, hasn’t forgotten Alicia or her incredible story. An obsessive determination pushes Theo to get Alicia to speak and explain why she shot her husband. His desire to free Alicia from her silence takes him down a dark and dangerous path and nearly costs him everything.
Crazy, Crazy, Crazy
We often believe that people are what they do. In some stories, we are worried more about what happened; less so why it happened. Alex Michaelides flipped that in The Silent Patient. Motive is everything. You don’t spend the book wondering who killed Gabriel Berenson. You read The Silent Patient and wonder why Gabriel died. What caused Alicia’s silence? Why is Theo obsessed with ‘fixing’ Alicia? Why is everyone lying? The questions keep the pages turning. I couldn’t finish reading The Silent Patient fast enough.
If you enjoy a good thriller and are looking for a real page-turner I highly recommend Alex Michaelides‘s The Silent Patient. Grab a copy today and come back and let me know what you think.