The Silent Patient by way of Stephen King: Parker, a young, overconfident psychiatrist new to his job at a mental asylum, miscalculates catastrophically when he undertakes curing a mysterious and profoundly dangerous patient. In a series of online posts, Parker H., a young psychiatrist, chronicles the harrowing account of his time working at a dreary mental hospital in New England. Through this … in New England. Through this internet message board, Parker hopes to communicate with the world his effort to cure one bewildering patient.
We learn, as Parker did on his first day at the hospital, of the facility’s most difficult, profoundly dangerous case–a forty-year-old man who was originally admitted to the hospital at age six. This patient has no known diagnosis. His symptoms seem to evolve over time. Every person who has attempted to treat him has been driven to madness or suicide.
Desperate and fearful, the hospital’s directors keep him strictly confined and allow minimal contact with staff for their own safety, convinced that releasing him would unleash catastrophe on the outside world. Parker, brilliant and overconfident, takes it upon himself to discover what ails this mystery patient and finally cure him. But from his first encounter with the mystery patient, things spiral out of control, and, facing a possibility beyond his wildest imaginings, Parker is forced to question everything he thought he knew.
Fans of Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes and Paul Tremblay’s The Cabin at the End of the World will be riveted by Jasper DeWitt’s astonishing debut.
more
Joe is a long-time patient of the Connecticut State Asylum. Brought there when he was 6 years old and treated by various doctors throughout the years, he has been deemed incurable. It seems people that have direct contact with Joe tend to end up dead.
Parker is newly hired at the CSA and has heard of Joe. After a time, he manages to gain access to Joe and receives permission to treat him. Will he be the one doctor to figure it out and cure Joe?
The book is written in letter/memo style with Parker posting his experience with Joe on a public forum. I actually enjoyed this style and it made for a quick read. What left me wanting however, was the story behind Joe. For me, the explanation given and the ending itself were unfulfilling. I felt there definitely needed to be a bit more. The story itself is interesting and makes for a good, mildly scary read.
I appreciate the author and NetGalley providing an E-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
In a series of online posts, Parker H., a young cocky psychiatrist, writes about his time working at a mental hospital in New England. While working there he seriously underestimates a dangerous patient and shit gets REAL fast! ( and by real…I mean NOT real but freaking weird).
When I started reading this story I had different expectations to where it would lead me . I thought this was more of a psychological thriller but as I read it warped into a supernatural or horror like read. The entire story is told from one perspective, it is actually written as if it came from an online blog post. I appreciated the concept but because it was so one dimensional it fell flat. I would have enjoyed reading the “response posts” to the blog entries. They are repeatedly hinted at but never in detail.
Overall the novel was unsual and gripping but it felt lacking to me. The turn from thriller to supernatural was unexpected and I didnt care for where it took me. Prior to that happening I was fully engaged and enthralled in this book and really wish it hadnt changed course.
I recieved a digital copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley im exchange for an honest review.
2008, a new, well-meaning but ambitious psychiatrist comes to work in an underfunded mental hospital. One specific patient catches his attention. It’s a young man, Joe, who was committed to the hospital when he was only 6 years old. Everybody who tried to treat him or even came in contact with him has either committed suicide or became mad themselves. The ambitious doctor swears that he will cure the incurable patient. It doesn’t take long before this patient convinces the doctor that there’s nothing wrong with him, that he is completely sane and that it’s all a massive scam and an elaborate conspiracy. He even states that the head-nurse that committed suicide a week earlier was in fact murdered because she planned to expose the scam. Then, the doctor decides that he will break out this patient. But things don’t go as planned and the tale becomes darker and darker.
This is an ingenious well-crafted story that starts out slow. The first pages felt like something a bit old fashioned that was written in the fifties or sixties and gave the impression that it was going to be a medical mystery. It’s presented as the blog of an unnamed psychiatrist on a (no longer existing) online platform and each entry reveals more of the case and leaves the reader guessing for a diagnosis. But hardly noticeable, darker and supernatural things creep into the story until you’re suddenly reading a horror novel. This is done so slowly and masterful that it’s the logical and inevitable conclusion of the story. I saw the ending coming, but only very late.
It’s a very short novel (128 pages) and there are only a few characters that are more or less caricatures of archetypes; the loving motherly one, the old wise one, … But it works really well in this setting. It was a bit like a short Stephen King book, but I certainly don’t imply that it’s a copy. As this appears to be the first book by this author, I’m curious for other work by him.
Luckily, this book isn’t intended to be realistic. As for the mechanics of a mental hospital and the relations between co-workers and patients, they’re not always plausible. But what the heck; it was creepy and a good read.
I thank Netgalley and Houghton Miflin Harcourt for their free ARC; this is my honest and unbiased review of it.
The Patient is a pretty small novel written as a series of entries within a fictitious medical forum. I really like how the entries are setup and the fact that there are breaks in key areas of the novel. Those breaks add a layer of suspense and horror to the story by allowing the reader to speculate about the potential conclusion of the tale. I thought that the story was absolutely amazing and I love the fact that there is no solid conclusion at the end. As I am writing this, I am still trying to decide if the narrator of the story is crazy or if there was truly a supernatural entity terrorizing the other characters in the story. I highly recommend this book!! This is one that I will be think about long after I return it to my bookcase.
Jasper DeWitt uses his abilities to create dark atmospheric settings and describe deeply disturbed minds to rivet readers in this won’t-let-you-go novel. So captivating is this dark read that I read it in one sitting, my heart racing, and feeling like a wrung-out washcloth at its end!
The book centers around Joe, brought to a mental hospital at age six, and still a patient forty years later. A patient kept in solitary with no one permitted to interact with him beyond the routine changing of his sheets, the quick drop off of his meals, and the giving of his medications. You see, everyone who has actually talked with Joe beyond these brief moments, has been driven to madness or suicide.
A new young doctor arrives at the hospital and believes that he can cure Joe. Writing about his thoughts and actions on a blog, he leads all of his readers to the edge of catastrophe when he almost makes the mistake of his life.
Joe… don’t you want to know what brought him to the hospital? Don’t you know why everyone is so afraid of him?? Are you sure? Are you ready??
Many thanks to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for allowing me to read an ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. All opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
I fell in love with the premise of this novel. Admittedly, I was nervous about it being compared to The Silent Patient, which I actually wasn’t a fan of.
Unfortunately, this book didn’t have a lot that I loved. Firstly, it pretty much read like a long creepypasta to me. The plot and the use of an online forum for our main character to tell his story was just a little too on the nose to all the creepypastas I used to read in middle school. This also gave the novel a slight “tell, not show” habit that I couldn’t get into. I think that this could be a lot better of a fit for people unfamiliar with creepypastas and who maybe don’t have as much experience in the horror genre.
There were also some parts of the psychology I had an issue with:
– Parker, our main character and a PSYCHOLOGIST, mentions that he thinks Joe might have sadistic personality disorder. This is a diagnosis that was taken out of the DSM in the 90s, and this story takes place in the 2000s.
– very stereotypical depiction of schizophrenia
– considers that young Joe might have had antisocial personality disorder when no competent psychologist would give that diagnosis for a child (they’d likely go with conduct disorder)
– wow, was Parker gullible considering he thought Joe might have psychopathic traits
All in all, not bad, but not anything special, either.
The Patient is one of those creepy stories that keep the pages turning and the reader guessing right up to the end! With each cliffhanging entry of Parker’s online chronicles of “Joe”, the reader is frantic to discover the secrets behind his long-term committal to the asylum and why everyone whispers his name as if he is the Boogeyman. With each entry, Parker reveals a little more until the hair-raising conclusion! This book is scary AF! I’ve been recommending it to all my thriller reading peeps! This haunting story kept me up way past my bedtime and was impossible to put down!
Reader’s Note: Having read and loved The Silent Patient, I found no similarities to the stories except having the word “Patient” in the title and the setting being in an asylum. Why the publisher/marketing execs are comparing them is lost to this reader.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book that I received via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. **