2.5 stars, rounded up
Sorry, unpopular opinion here. I loved The Silent Patient, but this one totally fell short for me.
I didn't like any of the characters, they lacked depth and nuance, particularly Mariana. She didn't ring true for me as a therapist, and I really dislike armchair detectives! I couldn't figure out why she was inserting herself into the investigation as it had nothing at all to do with her. She kept misrepresenting herself as a therapist involved with the investigation and she wasn't, which was totally unethical.
There are so many red herrings in this book that it borders on ridiculous. I wasn't even sure some of the people were actually real within the story because they were such caricatures. I'm also not into Greek mythology so all of that was just lost on me, and it wasn't even really relevant when all is said and done (minor spoiler, sorry, but it isn't really). I totally could not stand the ending. The "big reveal twist" was completely unbelievable and I nearly laughed because it came out of nowhere, yet was also so obvious. Maybe he is setting it up to take us back to the world of The Silent Patient (because there's definitely crossover potential here with the overlapping cases, patients, and location) and if he wraps this story up a bit better I could get behind that.
Fortunately, the chapters are super short for the most part so I was able to power through this book fairly quickly. I was just waiting for the big "wow" I received while reading The Silent Patient and it never happened. The plot has so much buildup for so little payoff. I will chalk this up to a lackluster sophomore effort after such a stunner of a first novel and will look forward to his next novel.
Sorry, unpopular opinion here. I loved The Silent Patient, but this one totally fell short for me.
I didn't like any of the characters, they lacked depth and nuance, particularly Mariana. She didn't ring true for me as a therapist, and I really dislike armchair detectives! I couldn't figure out why she was inserting herself into the investigation as it had nothing at all to do with her. She kept misrepresenting herself as a therapist involved with the investigation and she wasn't, which was totally unethical.
There are so many red herrings in this book that it borders on ridiculous. I wasn't even sure some of the people were actually real within the story because they were such caricatures. I'm also not into Greek mythology so all of that was just lost on me, and it wasn't even really relevant when all is said and done (minor spoiler, sorry, but it isn't really). I totally could not stand the ending. The "big reveal twist" was completely unbelievable and I nearly laughed because it came out of nowhere, yet was also so obvious. Maybe he is setting it up to take us back to the world of The Silent Patient (because there's definitely crossover potential here with the overlapping cases, patients, and location) and if he wraps this story up a bit better I could get behind that.
Fortunately, the chapters are super short for the most part so I was able to power through this book fairly quickly. I was just waiting for the big "wow" I received while reading The Silent Patient and it never happened. The plot has so much buildup for so little payoff. I will chalk this up to a lackluster sophomore effort after such a stunner of a first novel and will look forward to his next novel.