The Silent Dental Patient

I enjoy my 6 month visits with my dental hygienist. We are about the same age and I’ve probably been seeing her for a few years now. She’s married, but she has the qualities that interest me. I’m aware our interactions are taking place while my mouth is open, but I like that she’s unassuming and actually listens to me (as garbled as it may be). Every 6 months we review how the events/trips we took during that span turned out.

Without harping on how I missed out on my dental hygienist, we were talking about books we’ve read during the quarantine and I said I read the Stand and Misery. She commented that Kathy Bates was great in the movie Misery and I should see it. Then she asked if I’d read the Silent Patient. I hadn’t and said I would. So with that backdrop of why I read the Silent Patient, here is what I thought of it. Don’t read further if you plan on reading it.

Thrilling Read

This book is a page turner. I read it in about 2 days and would recommend it to the reader who enjoys the mystery behind a novel without the serious, critical review. I write this because it was good, but not great. I managed to stumble upon the twist at the end of part 3. Which was somewhat odd because as I read on I kept asking, “maybe I’m wrong.”

What I liked though was that even though I guessed that Theo had come back because he was involved in Alicia’s newfound silent nature, I didn’t put the Gabriel cheating with Kathy leading to the murder. The book tries to lead you away with the interactions with the gallery owner and the cousin, but it seems kind of dumb. Theo gets hit over the head by Paul with an object and it’s just like, “oh, sorry I did that.” Max, Gabriel’s brother, is just a distraction. All of the characters in the mental ward don’t seem to have a big enough of role. I felt that another 300 pages of information may have made this book deeper, but then I imagine it would lose its hard hitting appeal. A also enjoyed the psychological background from the main character and the relationship he was describing with Kathy. 8/10.