Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'm pretty disappointed in The Silent Patient. Not because it's not very good -- and I don't think it's very good -- but because so many reviews are so exuberant, and so much buzz and attention surround it. It really worries me about the state of public taste and an understanding of quality. So, without being too snarky ... it was painful to get through this. Every scene, character and almost every sentence is a cliche. It's a very flat story in that it's all shown from the perspective of what the protagonist(s) see at the moment; there's no subtext, no resonance to anything other than the one dimensional present. My guess is Mr. Michaelides wrote this as a screenplay then decided to novelize it. The "snappy" jumps from one ironic comment to the next scene shriek of cinematography, and while there's nothing wrong with that, a novel should have some depth beyond the immediate surface. Every timeworn scene is in there -- the scary old house with the mysterious stranger at the window; people jumping at you from the dark for a "boo" moment; the kindly old professor who seems to have every musical instrument stuffed into his office, including, yes, a harp; the loose floorboard in which a secret clue is hidden (how many loose floorboards do you have in your house?). Mr. Michaelides also seems to like the word "bitch" a lot, which is kind of disturbing -- he has a lot of the characters describe women this way, and it's unpleasant. He also has only one description for most men, which is "well-built." But it's the cliched writing that's really hard to slog through; some examples (no spoilers, I hope): "If looks could kill, I would have dropped dead;" "She devoured his kisses hungrily;" "A chorus of bells started ringing in my head, clanging, chiming, reverberating." Oh my! Another problem I had is motivation. In a convincing story, people do things based on human reactions and emotions, and no matter the subject, if we as readers identify with the motivations, it's all the more engaging. Mr. Michaelides lays out his characters and their motivations in a sort of legalistic way, i.e., all the evidence and facts are there, but it's as though he's never met a real human before and is jotting down their behavior as if from a textbook. It's hard to identify with any of the cliche'd characters because they operate so far from human reality. Now, I wouldn't be this critical if this was some run-of-the-mill mystery. But the magnitude of the praise seems totally at odds with the quality of the work. I only finished it because I paid $18 and wanted the payoff. And there is one. It's a TWIST, but it's sort of like twist #6, and you can see it coming about a mile off. So I was disappointed -- not so much with Mr. Michaelides, who presents a solid if uninspired product -- but with the clamor of critics and reviewers who tell us this is something great. Also note -- A.J. Finn, whose name and praise are all over this book has been revealed as a liar and somewhat of a scam artist. I would guess a good number of the great reviews you are seeing are paid and/or manipulated. Finn is not good company to be in right now, and if I were you, I would give careful critical eye to the praise here. Something's not right.