The Silent Patient

By Alex Michaelides | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5)

Today, mental illness and those who suffer to it have been slowly being looked into, accepted, and helped. More and more people understand and pay attention to it. But still, it is a long battle for society and the people to duly be educated, equipped of knowledge, and to comprehend what people who suffer need and go through.

Mental illness is precisely about a lack of this kind of integration—we end up losing contact with the unacceptable parts of ourselves.

The Silent Patient revolves around the story of Alicia Berenson, a patient who was convicted and placed in a mental institution— The Grove-for his husband’s death, and Theo Faber, a psychotherapist who worked on Alicia’s case.

Gabriel and Alicia Berenson, artists and married aren’t the typical married couple. Gabriel is a famous photographer and Alicia is a painter. Alicia, whose childhood was also tragic, has suffered different emotional winds that she learned to express through her art.

I didn’t want to die. Not yet; not when I hadn’t lived.

Theo, a psychotherapist, like Alicia also suffered a gruesome childhood because of his childhood. And the story has taken a turn on Theo and his issues.

We’re all crazy, I believe, just in different ways.

Like Theo in the story, he had some unexpressed emotions that took a toll on him as he went on with his life.

Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive, and will come forth later, in uglier ways.

Sigmund Frued

There were a lot of things lacking in Alicia’s life, her husband’s trust and belief in her are one. But Alicia could not ever kill her husband like how it panned out. Gabriel was shot point blank and Alicia became the bait to bury in this sin.

Choosing a lover is a lot like choosing a therapist. We need to ask ourselves, is this someone who will be honest with me, listen to criticism, admit making mistakes, and not promise the impossible?

Ruth

The turned out of events in this book was shockingly revealed, though a little prediction from my end has been concluded before I made it to the final stop.

*Spoiler Alert*

Theo was the killer, because Gabriel was once cheating with his lover. He set it up and use Alicia as bait. Though Alicia was wise and she recognized him even through disguised during the killing. Alicia kept a journal of events and she wrote about this, about it all, about Theo overdosing her that led her to coma.

The journal was then recovered from Alicia’s things and Theo in the end was arrested.