The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides ------------------- 3.5 Stars

A couple years old, The Silent Patient is a book that recently was recommended, and it was a pretty enjoyable read. Really a mystery novel set up as a first person story
about a psychotherapist attempting to help a famous and non-talking artist in a mental institution, the book was a fairly enjoyable read.

As I noted above, the book is really enjoyable as it's a constant "whodonut," never knowing exactly who might be lying or telling the truth. To offer a bit more background, the book is told mostly through the main character who is a psychotherapist with a traumatic past. You also get diary entries from the mute artist who slowly gets you up to speed about her past and catches up to the current timeline. As the novel moves forward, the pace increases and many more pieces of relevant information are offered until the rather shocking ending. Yes, it's one of those books with a big twist ending, which, based on Reddit threads, was very controversial. For me, it was a good ending, and I'm happy the author took a chance with a less than expected way to finish the story.

For the most part I really enjoyed the book. It was entertaining in the sense that I found myself constantly wanting to start the next chapter to see what happened next and found the plot exciting and interesting. On a downside, for a first person novel with the main character owning most of the narrative, I actually found him a flatter character than I would like. While sharing some about his history, much of the book is him simply telling what happens in the plot and very little expository about his own motivations. 

One last piece - I listened to nearly this whole book while driving. While a great way to pass time on a long car ride, I am curious if I would have liked the book more and given it a higher rating had I read it the traditional way. While I received the content and comprehended as much I believe I would have while reading it, I do think it took away from the experience. Perhaps because it was a bit of a binge (basically finished the book in 3 days on the road), I think there is something about pacing your own reading and getting the story directly with your own eyes.    For a future blog - better reading of paper book vs. Kindle?

Boy21 - Matthew Quick ---------------- 3.5 Stars

I would have never planned to read Boy21 if my son had not read the book and exclaimed it was the "greatest book I've ever read." Now, for context, he's not really read that many books but it certainly piqued my interest, and he was hoping that I would read it too.  So, I think I'd give it a try and pretty happy I did.

Some more background as most are probably not familiar with this book. The book is about 10 years old and is considered young adult fiction. Knowing it was YA, I did change my mindset going into reading it. That being said it was enjoyable. The story is told from the first person perspective of a teenage basketball player who befriends, a very talented player, who is struggling with some trauma in his past (he names himself Boy21). Also, fun fact, the author was the writer of Silver Linings Playbook.

There was a few things I really enjoyed about this book. First, it's really engaging. The plot moves quickly and there is not a lot of excess (negative too - see below). Second, as a YA book and related to the above, it's a short, quick read and easy to get through. Finally, I found plot very accessible, along with the characters, and enjoyed the many basketball and school connections.

On a downside, the book doesn't develop characters and plot as more typical adult novels. I figure this is mostly because the author is worried about keeping a young reader's attention, but it is a detriment to the story. Nowhere is this more on display than in the final 20-25 pages. The book was moving at a quick pace but nothing unreasonable and really doing a nice job to move the story forward. Oddly, a TON of things happened in the last chapter or two that really hurried the ending and left a bad taste in my mouth.

On the whole, fun book and happy I read it.