The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides - Book Review

I first noticed this book when it won the Good reads choice best thriller award for 2019 and this was supposed to be my first read for 2020. But it was hard to get in library as it was always making rounds and so had to settle for an e-book read. Also, this is the first book that I have done a buddy read with. When a good read friend of mine suggested the buddy read; I literally had no idea what that was but then getting to know about it, we gave it a try. And it was a good experience indeed.
Alicia has been confined to a mental institution after the murder of her husband, Gabriel. She has not spoken a word or interacted with anyone after the crime had taken place and the people treating her has lost all hope in her. In comes Theo, a psychotherapist who joins The Grove (institution name) and attempts at getting to know more on her. He wants to understand her and help her through the treatment. Finally she starts to open up a bit to him. Will Theo be able to get more details out of her on the crime? Will he be able to make her speak and help her back to normalcy? Will he be able to finally shed some light on the crime? forms the remaining part of the story.
What makes it different from the other stories is the main person involved. I can't quite call him the protagonist. Usually it is investigator or lawyer or police men who will be trying to get to the bottom of a crime. But here the doctor is trying to delve into the perpetrator mind and trying to get to her; thereby unraveling the crime parallely. That was a clever move. We get to know both the sides of the crime. There are only a limited prominent characters but the writer has managed to keep us guessing between people. The story takes its own sweet time to set into motion. Half way into the book, we just get to see lives of various characters and we get a feel that we have not gone much in the main topic but then we get ample hints on  what is down the lane. There are some instances which are pretty much predictable thanks to many Hollywood movies. One instance is their pasts being dark and both having same level of bad experiences and hence able to sync well with each other. But there also; a clever move from the writer steers us away to a good twist. The characters of Theo and Alicia are well written. The author has maintained a state of instability and mystery throughout the story. I was somewhat able to predict the story line towards the end but then the way it turned out finally was unexpected. This is not much of a whodunit. It is a sort of whydunit; given the love that existed between Alicia and Gabriel. The childhood of Alicia and Theo are written well. It is not written in detail but the writer has stated out incidents that need to be known. There do exist some open questions and doubts on whether certain things even happened or existed or was that just a figment of their imagination.
This book is a very good page turner. It is not my most favorite read but was worth a good read. I would recommend this to people who look for thrillers but in a different way. I mean the psychological aspects. And this book got me into buddy read also which was a wonderful one and which I intend to follow down the lane occasionally.