You know that feeling. You’ve read the reviews in the mainstream press and Publishers Weekly calls it the “hottest title” of the season. You love the sound of the storyline. You wait patiently for publication day, maybe hoping for a snow day so you can stay home and savor each page. But, then, by the time you have the thriller in your hot little hands, you’re like a starving man with a slice of day-old bread. You devour the whole thing in just minutes.
Most Awaited Thriller
In the case of The Silent Patient, the debut thriller by screenwriter Alex Michaelides, this meant I went right to the last four chapters and read them in one fell swoop. This is why:
I’ve been hearing about this one since the beginning of last December when it was touted by Publishers Weekly as one of the forthcoming season’s “hottest titles.” The novel got terrific advance reviews from Lee Child, David Baldacci and (maybe unfortunately) from A.J. Finn author of The Woman in the Window who said: “I told myself I’d just dip in; eleven hours later — it’s now 5.47am — I’ve finished it, absolutely dazzled.”
(I say unfortunately since in a stunning, ironic, real-life twist, on the very day of Silent Patient’s publication, A.J. Finn was exposed in the New Yorker as a con artist and liar. But that’s another story.)
Deadly Marriage
In its starred review, Publishers Weekly deemed The Silent Patient as an “edgy, intricately plotted thriller” about Alicia an artist who appears idyllically married to Gabriel a successful photographer. One day she shoots Gabriel dead in their magnificent London home, and slashes her wrists in an attempted suicide.
That’s how the cops find her when they arrive at the home just minutes after the shooting. Alicia doesn’t speak again. Doesn’t say another word through her arrest, trial and commitment to a psychiatric facility. Her only statement appears through her last painting which is based on the Greek myth of Alcestis (a wife who sacrificed her life to die in place of her husband.)
Enter protagonist Theo Faber, a psychotherapist who is so obsessed with her case he leaves a safe position at one psychiatric facility and applies to work at the facility to which Alicia has been committed, believing he is the one who can make her speak and so make her better.
Waiting Game
It sounded like a tale of a marriage gone horribly wrong with an intriguing, unusual, slightly mythological mystery at its heart. That was enough to place The Silent Patient straight on my TBR (to be read) list. Its publication date was February 5th — so I had almost a full two months to wait.
I did what I usually do in these cases, I went onto the book’s Goodreads page to read all the advanced reviews from thriller lovers like myself — except that unlike myself they had received advance review copies (ARCs) from among others Netgalley, a facilitator between reviewers, bloggers and publishers seeking pre-publication publicity for their titles.
This is what I found:
“Wow! I’m still reeling from that ending! A mind-blowing to-die for twist!”
“Jaw. On. Floor. The twist is that good, seriously.”
“Awesome twist at the end that will stun you.”
“Holy Motherf*cker. The book has literally just blown my mind.”
“Unputdownable … with a twist that will make even the most seasoned suspense reader break out in a cold sweat.”
You get the picture.
Shut Up, Blake Crouch!
Then I read the 5-star review of author Blake Crouch (pictured) (Dark Matter, Wayward Pines trilogy): “An ending that is destined to go down as one of the most shocking, mind-blowing twists in recent memory.”
This was just too much for me. I had to, just had to, know what that twist was. I scoured through all the advance reviews on Goodreads searching for one that possibly contained a “spoiler” which would give me a clue. The suspense was killing me. But I couldn’t find anything, so I applied to join Netgalley and requested the advance review copy.
I never heard from the publisher, Celadon Books, until they sent me an email through Netgalley on February 5 stating that they were sorry they had not sent me an advance review copy, but the book was now on sale and I could “buy a copy today!!!”
Thanks a bunch, guys, I thought, since I’d already downloaded my purchased edition just after midnight and was, at that moment, facing a serious dilemma: What to do? What to do?
Reading The Ending First
But, there was really no contest. I was not about to sit down and slowly savor each bite. I was too hungry. I fell on my Kindle and devoured the whole thing in just minutes. Which means I turned to the very last chapters of Alex Michaelides’s (pictured) thriller to find out exactly what all the fuss was about.
And so, I essentially spent $13.99 on just four chapters — my whole reading experience ruined by the likes of Blake Crouch and some well-intentioned Goodreads reviewers.
I was not happy. I felt a little cheated by the “mind-blowing twist. Of course, there was virtually no revelation which could have satisfied that amount of hype. (Surmising about what might qualify, I imagined the most explosive revelation: that Alicia was the one who got killed and that Gabriel was the one who killed her and was now posing as his wife in the psychiatric facility!!! But, that wasn’t it.)
I was also disappointed in myself for falling for the kind of hype which had led to my greedy devouring of a $13.99 e-book in less than ten minutes. I should have known better.
Wool Over Eyes
One of the most prolific reviewers on Goodreads, Chelsea Humphrey (pictured), totally nailed it when she wrote:
“This is a novel that depends on you being fooled by the twist […] You know the big twist where every early review gives you a heads-up. It seems these types of books that pull the wool over your eyes and take you by surprise are best enjoyed before anyone else has had a chance to read them.”
And, to review them, Chelsea should have added. Certainly, I never read the Goodreads/Netgalley reviews, and therefore had no inkling of what was coming in my all-time favorite thrillers like Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island or Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl.
So, maybe, the fault lies with me –and the lesson to be learned is not to read too many reviews until after I’ve finished reading a thriller.
Spoiler Alert
Just for the record, I did go back to the beginning, wearing my author hat rather than my reader hat. I was interested to see how Michaelides had produced the twist which if not exactly “mind-blowing” did come as a big surprise revelation. Unlike some reviewers/readers who stated they saw the twist coming, I would not have seen it at all had I started at the beginning. This, even though I surmised that Theo’s interest/obsession with Alicia had to be more than just professional.
I give the thriller four stars, however, because the author managed to pull the wool over this reader’s eyes only by blatantly blurring timelines. The blurring was so obviously intended to deceive the reader, I’m sure this is why at least one professional reviewer, Kirkus Reviews, described the novel as “clumsy and contrived.”
Movie TK
Not that I would call it a total cheat simply because readers of the genre are used to timestamps all over their chapters. Also, as a screenwriter, Michaelides is probably used to using visuals rather than timestamps to delineate the passage of time or the difference between past and present.
Enough said. I am curious how this issue will be dealt with in the movie, the rights to which have gone to Brad Pitt’s development company.
Pity he’s not still with Angelina. She would make a fabulous Alicia.