Wondering if what’s happening is real or not, being unsure about the time frames of events in books, and wondering which characters you can and cannot trust makes things more interesting. Is the narrator even credible? Is what he’s telling us even true? Or is it just another one of his lies in order to make himself seem like the only good person? The Silent Patient offers this exact perspective and always manages to leave readers shocked and confused as to what’s about to happen next.

This psychological thriller tells the story of a woman named Alicia, who murders her husband. Throughout the investigation and questioning, Alicia stays quiet, never saying a word. Even after being admitted to a psychiatric hospital and having psychological treatment with various doctors, she still doesn’t say a word. However, things suddenly change when she is assigned a new doctor, Theo, who is eager to find a solution to what is happening to her and uncover her motive for the murder. 

The amount of plot twists makes the book hard to look away from. At the beginning of the novel, Theo is seen as an angel sent from heaven, who is truly trying to help his patients and understand their pain. But by the end, we start to wonder about his true intentions until we’re hit with the biggest plot twist in the book. As the book goes on, Theo becomes unclear with time frames and locations, keeping certain details away from the reader to continue the mystery and protect himself. The novel, although starting off slow, picks up its pace fairly quickly, making it hard to put down. No matter how many crime shows you’ve seen or how much you believe you’ve figured out the ending, it’ll still shock and confuse you at the same time, leaving you speechless and continuously wondering what’s going to happen next.

The Silent Patient also offers a double point of view between the doctor, Theo, and the patient, Alicia, more specifically, her diary that she gives to him. This is done to show little pieces in each of their lives. Backstories are especially important in this book because they reveal so much about the characters, including one of the biggest plot twists of the story — how Theo and Alicia were connected to each other before the murder. Authors do this to add suspense and keep the reader on edge, always wondering what else is going to happen. I, for example, wasn’t able to put my book down as the pace was slowly picking up, with plot twists happening one after the other.   

In conclusion, The Silent Patient is a novel that is definitely worth reading and taking a look at if you’re into crime and psychological thrillers. This book is one of the few that I continuously recommend to people. Every event that happens perfectly fits into the storyline, with no plot holes, which is hard to achieve. It is told in a double perspective, and having an unreliable narrator continues the mystery. This is exactly what a thriller like this needs to achieve the purpose of making the reader confused and interested at all times. It’s also interesting to see how Alicia recognized him immediately but decided not to say anything because she wanted to uncover his motive for the murder, which is the same thing Theo was doing to Alicia. Every aspect of the book was well written, and it was very well thought out.