The Silent Patient Book Club Questions

Welcome to the Buddy Book Club – we have a light-hearted comedic podcast that covers a variety of books. We kicked off our 2023 reading-journey with The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides. Good choice, as this page turning dark thriller flew by. If you like dark murder mysteries, and twist-heavy books, look no further. If you like two guys rambling about how awful Diomedes is, well then check out our podcast episode on The Silent Patient.

Our book club questions try to be a little more outside the box/comedic than your typical book club questions – hopefully you enjoy them.

Book Club Questions – The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

-> Does everyone that works at the Grove suck? Diomedes, Christian, Yuri, Stephanie and obviously Theo.

The people that need treatment are supposed to be the patients not the therapists. Nothing worse than having awful co-workers.

-> Speaking of people that come off looking awful, not a good look for American’s in this book, did you think the American’s in this book (Barbie and Kathy) were a little bit one dimensional?

As an attention seeking, gossipy, American myself, Barbie and Kathy both made sense to me.

-> How does Theo get beat up by a frail drugged out Alicia?

Pretty embarrassing right? All the other therapists are making fun of him behind his back for sure.

-> Does Alicia need glasses? She keeps talking about seeing a mysterious figure in the distance, but can’t see him and doesn’t go out and confront or confirm the person is real?

Weird move, especially when everyone thinks you’re crazy. I would go out of my way to prove I’m not crazy.

-> Kathy being super critical of Theo for smoking weed but then also guiltlessly cheating on him is what had to drive him to stalking/almost murder, right?

Also, I thought weed mellowed you out, maybe Theo needed to be smoking on some better devils lettuce.

-> There were a lot of red herrings in this book, what was the biggest for you?

For us it was Jean-Felix, he was a shady character, also since the only seemingly good person was Ruth, I thought she was going to be in on things somehow.

-> If you’re going to make someone the fall guy for your murder, might as well setup an asshole like Christian, right?

I’m not even mad at Theo for that, but then again I am someone that holds a big grudge.

-> Other than Ruth, was there any character in the book you liked/could sympathize with?

Maybe Indira, but she also was the one that vouched for Theo and kept letting him treat Alicia.

-> Do you like how the book ended? Do you think Theo gets away with it still?

Doesn’t seem like they’d have enough evidence to charge him with murder. Also, Theo deciding to murder Alicia on a whim seemed a bit brash.

-> Who would you cast in a movie of The Silent Patient?

Need some inspiration, check out our Make it a Movie blog. 

 

Did we miss some questions? Reach out to us or check out our podcast.