A review by carlisbookshelf
The Patient by Jane Shemilt
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I wish I could rate this book higher, but I have so many conflicting thoughts about the book that it’s sitting at a solid 3 stars… because it was mid.
The blurb on the back of the book was super intriguing. Doctor meets patient, they hit it off… both professionally and romantically (despite both of them being in albeit unsatisfying marriages to other people), and crazy shit (like the murder of one of the doctor’s coworker) begins to happen as their relationship intensifies, which exposes a bunch of long buried secrets and creates a huge rift in both of their seemingly perfect lives. Seems interesting enough.
But, I didn’t get to any of that crazy, thriller shit until about 65% of the way through. The first half was very disjointed and slow and overall just not interesting to me. New characters were introduced haphazardly to the point I had trouble remembering who was who outside of the main character, her husband, and adult daughter. A lot of it (the plot twists and thriller qualities) fell flat to me solely because of how one dimensional the characters all were and how surface-level their interactions were. It started picking up way too late in the game for me, which also made the actual climax of the story fall flat to me.
I mean, I blew through this one because I’m no quitter and it did start to pick up enough for me to want to know how the story ends, but I wanted something more from the beginning and I was expecting something different than what was presented to me.
The blurb on the back of the book was super intriguing. Doctor meets patient, they hit it off… both professionally and romantically (despite both of them being in albeit unsatisfying marriages to other people), and crazy shit (like the murder of one of the doctor’s coworker) begins to happen as their relationship intensifies, which exposes a bunch of long buried secrets and creates a huge rift in both of their seemingly perfect lives. Seems interesting enough.
But, I didn’t get to any of that crazy, thriller shit until about 65% of the way through. The first half was very disjointed and slow and overall just not interesting to me. New characters were introduced haphazardly to the point I had trouble remembering who was who outside of the main character, her husband, and adult daughter. A lot of it (the plot twists and thriller qualities) fell flat to me solely because of how one dimensional the characters all were and how surface-level their interactions were. It started picking up way too late in the game for me, which also made the actual climax of the story fall flat to me.
I mean, I blew through this one because I’m no quitter and it did start to pick up enough for me to want to know how the story ends, but I wanted something more from the beginning and I was expecting something different than what was presented to me.