There has been so much hype around "The Patient" that I was eager to dive in. The format itself, which reads as a series of postings from an online messageboard, was unique -- and I liked it. The story itself was also quite interesting and I sped through the entire book in just over a day.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this and will almost certainly pass it along to somebody else who likes this genre. However, there were some issues here that were hard to look past (though maybe, without all of the buzz around this book, it wouldn't have been so glaring). First, I found the central character to be impossible to like. Now, that could be by design, but it felt more like he just wasn't fleshed out enough. He was arrogant and intellectual, but in a way that didn't feel authentic. That spilled out into the dialogue, which left a lot to be desired.
Finally, the women in the story didn't feel like whole characters. We didn't learn almost anything about them and I could be mistaken but they never interacted with each other. I just wanted more!
Overall, I enjoyed reading this and will almost certainly pass it along to somebody else who likes this genre. However, there were some issues here that were hard to look past (though maybe, without all of the buzz around this book, it wouldn't have been so glaring). First, I found the central character to be impossible to like. Now, that could be by design, but it felt more like he just wasn't fleshed out enough. He was arrogant and intellectual, but in a way that didn't feel authentic. That spilled out into the dialogue, which left a lot to be desired.
Finally, the women in the story didn't feel like whole characters. We didn't learn almost anything about them and I could be mistaken but they never interacted with each other. I just wanted more!