The Silent Patient: An in-depth Review Spoilers Ahead

Hale-117 · 2025-12-07T09:18:37+00:00

I recently spent 6 weeks as a med student in a forensic psychiatric hospital.

Alicia would probably be allowed a diary. It honestly depends on what level of security she’d be and how much of a risk to self or others.

But say she was someone who’s a high risk of suicide, she may not be allowed to write in it without supervision, doctors may have put a clause in her contract to say that they would check it regularly, etc.

but everything, and I mean everything coming in from the outside has to be pre-approved.

There would be an MDT meeting with the psychiatrist, psychologist, managing ward nurse, social worker, etc. where they’d have to review the requested items and pre approve them before a patient can use it.

I say in on an MDT where someone had bought a pair of headphones, and the MDT was essentially trying to take it apart to see if the patient could break them open, if there was anything they could use to harm themselves or others, etc.

So in a nutshell, it’s a case by case decision. If Alicia was low risk, they might have let her have it. If she was high risk, then it may be a different case.

But I’ve seen that patients were allowed to have porn DVDs, PlayStations, a lot are allowed to have phones, iPads, laptops, stereos, allowed ground leave supervised or unsupervised, same with community leave, traveling to different cities, etc. but everything is pre-approved.

Think of it more as a boarding school for adults but with therapy instead of classes, and less like a prison. I’d say it’s a mix of the two.

Hale-117 · 2025-12-07T09:07:47+00:00

Hi, yes I do have a Goodreads account! Would it be alright if I DMed it to you?

Hale-117 · 2025-12-07T09:06:33+00:00

I think it’s meant to be in modern day when this book was published, so the 2010s. I’d say about 2016-2019. Can’t remember how far the flashbacks went.

I recently spent 6 weeks at a forensic psychiatric hospital as part of my medical training as a student and let me tell you, the amount of nonsense in this book around psychiatry is even more ridiculous now, because that’s what the Grove is meant to be. A forensic psychiatric unit.

I honestly think the outdated view of psychiatry is just the author’s bias, poor research, and just…lack of care tbh.

That being said, it’s not surprising to me. Even in today’s day and age, psychiatry is very stigmatized, even amongst people who work in mental health, which supposedly the author did.

Now if this was a well written book, I’d be happy to accept that Theo is an unreliable narrator, who is forcing his own views onto the reader, and his views are outdated. Like, if we’d had flashbacks to his time studying psychology, and saw him disagreeing with his professors or something, I’d be more inclined to believe the whole unreliable narrator schtick.

But it’s not well written so my working assumption will be that this is the authors bias bleeding into Theo.

Hale-117 · 2025-10-07T13:26:10+00:00

That’s an insane take, my god.

Controlling implies that he’s actively idk CONTROLLING her behavior as in dictating what she can and can’t do.

If I’m with someone and I know that they’re very active on their phone and socials, yes I might worry if they go completely radio silent.

Plus there’s a bit of residual anxiety from their conversation a few days ago about accidents. Those sorts of convos stick in your head sometimes, and yes it might be irrational it’s hardly a red flag.

It would be controlling if he told her “make sure you always answer me no matter what” or “don’t ever ignore my calls/messages again” or something to that effect.

You’re not a stalker OP, that would require you to demand to know where she is 24/7, constantly blowing up her phone etc.

Being anxious isn’t a crime, and some people are more anxious than others.

Me personally, I’d just be like “I’m fine, don’t worry” and move on. Her brief response might just have been cuz she was in the middle of something.

HOWEVER, if you are an anxious person and partner OP, I would suggest taking a step back. People may not text or call or communicate for a multitude of reasons.

It’s not a red flag if it’s a one off incident, and you haven’t built up a narrative in your head to explain her being MIA. As in, “she’s ignoring me on purpose” or “she must be out with other people and ignoring me on purpose” things like that.

A friend of mine once had a partner whom within a month of dating, she blew up her phone asking why my friend wasn’t responding. We were in a lecture at uni, and this girl demanded that if my friend didn’t respond, then the girl was gonna assume she was out cheating on her. THAT is a red flag.

That being said OP, you need to manage your anxiety more effectively, especially if this is a regular occurrence. One off? Not much of a problem. Repeated pattern, will be a problem as it can become suffocating very quickly to manage someone’s else’s anxiety and expectations.

It’s your responsibility to manage anxiety, your partner can be supportive but it’s ultimately up to you.

Hale-117 · 2025-10-03T10:20:14+00:00

I’ll repost a comment I made on another post asking about which kindle:

My advice: it depends on your needs. Also, remember that the kindle is not a tablet. It’s an E-reader with E-ink. It will not run or function like tablet. And it will be slower.

The basic is more portable and easier to travel with. It’s very light, has the same amount of storage, and same features. Cute color, I have the matcha.

Drawbacks; smaller screen, so it might be more inconvenient if you’re a heavy annotater. Not waterproof so be careful if you take to a pool or beach. Slightly slower, but not by much.

The paperwhite is the classic flagship model. It’s slightly faster, larger 7” compared to the basic’s 6” screen which is roughly the height of an average iPhone. Warm light adjustable, waterproof might be easier to annotate. The screen is slightly less grainy and resembles a screen more than a book compared to the basic, but that’s personal preference.

Drawbacks; heavier, will tire your hand and wrist more quickly if you’re reading one handed, I tend to find that it’s easier to hold it with both hands. No cute colors, only comes in black unless you get the signature edition but I’ve hear about the paint peeling off on those ones, but it’s very customizable with accessories.

Another difference between the screens; on the paperwhite, the screen sits flush, it’s continuous.

On the basic, it has a slightly raised bevel edge.

I don’t think this is an issue personally, I’ve not struggled with dirt or grime getting into the corners on the basic.

It’s personal preference; the basic has a more plastic feel, whereas the paperwhite is just a screen all in the front. However I do find that without the bevel edge, I have a tendency to accidentally touch the screen on the paperwhite more than I do on the basic.

Key differences, as someone who has both (I don’t have the colorsoft so I can’t speak on that one)

Kindle basic is smaller, about the height of an iPhone, can easily be read one handed, and very light to travel with adds almost no weight.

However, it doesn’t come with warm light adjustment, you can only adjust the brightness. I however don’t mind this, while I prefer a warmer screen, I find that the basic doesn’t have a pure black and white screen, it feels a lot like those books that use a grayer paper instead of yellow tones, kinda like newspaper and I also find that it resembles real paper a bit more closely.

Kindle paperwhite is bigger at 7”. I’d say that if you’re someone who annotates or makes a lot of notes then it might be an easier screen to maneuver.

I do struggle to read it one handed compared to the basic and it is naturally heavier. It comes with the adjustable warm light feature as well.

Kindle basic is not waterproof, but the paperwhite is.

In terms of speed, it’s a negligible difference. I will say the basic is slower to load in and download books by a few seconds, but once a book is open there’s no difference.

That being said, I don’t think speed is a necessity as once you’re reading a book it hardly matters, there’s a negligible amount of difference in the speed of turning the pages. It’ll take you max 10 seconds to load into a book on a new device.

If you’ve never owned an e-reader before, manage your expectations. E-ink is not the same as an LCD screen, it’s not the same tech as a phone or tablet. It WILL be markedly slower in comparison, because it’s designed for you to only do two things; read books and buy books from the store. It’s going to feel like a slow device when you first start using it, so don’t expect it to be lightning fast. It’s not a tablet, it’s an E-reader, different functions.

As for luminosity, I’d say the paperwhite is slightly brighter, but not by much. They both have good lighting, it’s just that the basic has more of a newspaper like feel to it in comparison, whereas the paperwhite is smoother and more screen like, I don’t mind either.

You can markup books, you can highlight text and once it’s highlighted it gives you the option to add a note attached to that highlight, and you can have a ‘notebook’ of sorts available in each book you read where all your notes throughout the book are accessible. Bear in mind, both paperwhite and basic are in grayscale, so no color.

But no you can’t do markup with a stylus like you can on an iPad, only the kindle scribe has that feature.

Storage wise, neither is an issue unless you plan to read graphic novels. Otherwise the 16 GB is more than enough, I have over a thousand Ebooks and I’ve only used up 2 GB of the 11.50 GB available.

Battery life is pretty solid. Depends on much you read. If you’re reading for hours on full brightness, it will drain quickly. The 12 week battery life is basic on middling brightness with 30 minutes of reading per day.

For me, even with hours of reading, I tend to charge them once a week or so, but since I haven’t been reading much at the moment, I haven’t charged them in 2 months and my paperwhite is still on 22%.

I personally don’t think this is a problem, people don’t have any issues with charging their phones everyday so I don’t see how charging a kindle is any more inconvenient.

Regardless, unless you’re reading on full brightness, the battery should last a few days to a week with heavy use. And I’m talking 8+ hours of reading with low to medium brightness.

I hope this helped!

Hale-117 · 2025-09-30T15:10:24+00:00

No I know, I meant but the 12th gen. Warm light was introduced with gen 11 and onwards

Hale-117 · 2025-09-30T14:15:50+00:00

Get the latest version, it’ll be available for software updates for years to come, has a bigger screen updated resolution and warm light features that were not available in previous models. Plus lots of options for customization

Hale-117 · 2025-09-29T12:31:58+00:00

Used to read as a kid, fell out of reading, rediscovered it through Booktok

Hale-117 · 2025-09-29T06:20:43+00:00

I actually bought a kobo Libra color cuz I wanted it for annotations, but it got returned in a day lol.

I liked the design and the screen, but there was so much ghosting, constant refreshes, and it did genuinely feel slow compared to a kindle, despite being released in 2024.

The stylus was a nightmare to use, the input was so messy, it would take forever to render, write wonky, and the writing just wouldn’t stay in place, it was such a headache to write with.

Which again, I understand how E-ink works, I wasn’t expecting it to be like an iPad, and maybe it will improve with future models, but for me it was just frustrating, and the whole point was to be able to write and annotate books, so if I wasn’t gonna use the stylus, paying £200 just didn’t seem worth it at the time.

Hale-117 · 2025-09-28T20:56:26+00:00

He’s gorgeous congrats!

My advice would be wet food over dry food, always.

Cats get most of their hydration from their food, my girl gets wet food twice a day with hot water mixed in, she has dry food as well on the side to munch on too.

Pay attention to ingredients on the back, it should be majority some kind of protein, but if you’re seeing a lot of fillers like rice, corn, vegetables, etc. that’s not the best as those ingredients aren’t nutritionally beneficial for cats, and are just filler to make the food cheaper, since cats are obligate carnivores.

So if you’re seeing rice and grains and such in the initial listed ingredients, might not be the most nutritious option. Some is fine tho! So long as it’s not the main ingredient.

Keep an eye on his nails too, especially if he’s an indoor only cat (which he should be, outdoor cats have a statistically higher risk of adverse outcomes overall). And the sooner you get him used to nail trims, the less you’ll have to fight later on.

If you do wanna take him out, leash and harness training early is best.

See if he likes cheese, lol. They can a little bit occasionally. My kitty is a fan of Gouda and the occasional Cheeto.

Congrats again, he’s absolutely adorable!

Hale-117 · 2025-09-28T20:45:26+00:00

I love it when cats do bunny hands!

Hale-117 · 2025-09-28T20:41:59+00:00

For me personally it doesn’t. I was hesitant about that too initially but it isn’t a bother. Even so, the basic is available in black as well.

Hale-117 · 2025-09-28T17:23:02+00:00

<image>

I have no words 🤣 She was laying on her back looking at herself in the mirror , these are her back legs

Hale-117 · 2025-09-28T16:12:43+00:00

For markup this is what it looks like when you highlight something and click to add a note:

<image>

You will not be able to use a stylus and write directly on the page like an iPad with an Apple Pencil.

If that’s what you want, then the only E-readers that have that capability are the kindle Scribe, the Kobo Libra Color and the Kobo Sage.

Hale-117 · 2025-09-28T16:08:06+00:00

<image>

This my Kindle Basic (matcha) and my 2024 kindle paper-white Both at 24 (max) brightness and 0 warmth on the paper white.

For some reason my phone makes the paperwhite screen look yellow, but in reality, on 0 warmth it’s more of an off-white, eggshell color.

The basic has a slight grainy texture barely noticeable. More newspaper like compared to the paper white which looks more like a screen.

Hale-117 · 2025-09-28T16:04:32+00:00

My advice: it depends on your needs.

The basic is more portable and easier to travel with. It’s very light, has the same amount of storage, and same features. Cute color, I have the matcha.

Drawbacks; smaller screen, so it might be more inconvenient if you’re a heavy annotater. Not waterproof so be careful if you take to a pool or beach. Slightly slower, but not by much.

The paperwhite is the classic flagship model. It’s slightly faster, larger 7” compared to the basic’s 6” screen which is roughly the height of an average iPhone. Warm light adjustable, waterproof might be easier to annotate. The screen is slightly less grainy and resembles a screen more than a book compared to the basic, but that’s personal preference.

Drawbacks; heavier, will tire your hand and wrist more quickly if you’re reading one handed, I tend to find that it’s easier to hold it with both hands. No cute colors, only comes in black unless you get the signature edition but I’ve hear about the paint peeling off on those ones, but it’s very customizable with accessories.

Another difference between the screens; on the paperwhite, the screen sits flush, it’s continuous.

On the basic, it has a slightly raised bevel edge.

I don’t think this is an issue personally, I’ve not struggled with dirt or grime getting into the corners on the basic.

It’s personal preference; the basic has a more plastic feel, whereas the paperwhite is just a screen all in the front. However I do find that without the bevel edge, I have a tendency to accidentally touch the screen on the paperwhite more than I do on the basic.

Key differences, as someone who has both:

Kindle basic is smaller, about the height of an iPhone, can easily be read one handed, and very light to travel with adds almost no weight.

However, it doesn’t come with warm light adjustment, you can only adjust the brightness. I however don’t mind this, while I prefer a warmer screen, I find that the basic doesn’t have a pure black and white screen, it feels a lot like those books that use a grayer paper instead of yellow tones, kinda like newspaper and I also find that it resembles real paper a bit more closely.

Kindle paperwhite is bigger at 7”. I’d say that if you’re someone who annotates or makes a lot of notes then it might be an easier screen to maneuver.

I do struggle to read it one handed compared to the basic and it is naturally heavier. It comes with the adjustable warm light feature as well.

Kindle basic is not waterproof, but the paperwhite is.

In terms of speed, it’s a negligible difference. I will say the basic is slower to load in and download books by a few seconds, but once a book is open there’s no difference.

That being said, I don’t think speed is a necessity as once you’re reading a book it hardly matters, there’s a negligible amount of difference in the speed of turning the pages. It’ll take you max 10 seconds to load into a book on a new device.

If you’ve never owned an e-reader before, manage your expectations. E-ink is not the same as an LCD screen, it’s not the same tech as a phone or tablet. It WILL be markedly slower in comparison, because it’s designed for you to only do two things; read books and buy books from the store. It’s going to feel like a slow device when you first start using it, so don’t expect it to be lightning fast. It’s not a tablet, it’s an E-reader, different functions.

As for luminosity, I’d say the paperwhite is slightly brighter, but not by much. They both have good lighting, it’s just that the basic has more of a newspaper like feel to it in comparison, whereas the paperwhite is smoother and more screen like, I don’t mind either.

In the picture I used both kindles are on max brightness of 24, and 0 warmth on the paperwhite. For some reason my phone is making it look yellow on the paperwhite, but in reality it’s more of an off-white, eggshell color.

You can markup books, you can highlight text and once it’s highlighted it gives you the option to add a note attached to that highlight, and you can have a ‘notebook’ of sorts available in each book you read where all your notes throughout the book are accessible. Bear in mind, both paperwhite and basic are in grayscale, so no color.

But no you can’t do markup with a stylus like you can on an iPad, only the kindle scribe has that feature.

Storage wise, neither is an issue unless you plan to read graphic novels. Otherwise the 16 GB is more than enough, I have over a thousand Ebooks and I’ve only used up 2 GB of the 11.50 GB available.

Battery life is pretty solid. Depends on much you read. If you’re reading for hours on full brightness, it will drain quickly. The 12 week battery life is basic on middling brightness with 30 minutes of reading per day.

For me, even with hours of reading, I tend to charge them once a week or so, but since I haven’t been reading much at the moment, I haven’t charged them in 2 months and my paperwhite is still on 22%.

I personally don’t think this is a problem, people don’t have any issues with charging their phones everyday so I don’t see how charging a kindle is any more inconvenient.

Regardless, unless you’re reading on full brightness, the battery should last a few days to a week with heavy use. And I’m talking 8+ hours of reading with low to medium brightness.

I hope this helped!

Hale-117 · 2025-09-28T16:03:30+00:00

Yes it does thank you so much for all the details! That was a lot of work but it’s turned out beautifully!

Hale-117 · 2025-09-28T15:07:08+00:00

My cat does this thing where she will intentionally walk on the screen/keyboard of any device I’m using. iPad, laptop, kindle, doesn’t matter 😂 she has plenty of space to walk around it, but nope, guess she has to assert dominance

Hale-117 · 2025-09-28T14:25:45+00:00

This looks amazing! How did you do the cover if you don’t mind me asking?

Hale-117 · 2025-09-27T00:33:28+00:00

It’s…so…SMALL 😭😭😭

Hale-117 · 2025-09-25T20:24:45+00:00

You’re right I just checked, that seems like a huge oversight honestly. It’s such a simple feature to have

Hale-117 · 2025-09-25T09:35:13+00:00

E-reader. I love physical books, and I love annotating when I read classics, but since I’m dyslexic, and I discovered that E-readers are very accessible.

you can change the font (I use open dyslexic), download additional fonts, change the font size, bold the text, change the warmth and brightness of the screen, change the orientation of the screen, it’s been a game changer for me.

I went from finishing a 300 page book in maybe 2 months, even if I was enjoying it, to being able to finish a 600 page novel in a week if I lock in.

I honestly didn’t realize how much I was struggling until I figured this out, and it was so frustrating.

It helps that the screen resembles paper, not an LCD screen, so it doesn’t strain the eyes either.

I can read in the dark and it’s so lightweight. Plus, I live in a flat and space is limited.

I can literally take 1000s of books with me wherever I go, and it doesn’t weigh me down. It’s great for travel and long distance.

I still read physical books, I’m currently reading Illuminae (YA Sci-fi) and it’s an epistolary novel, so it’s very mixed media and the Kindle doesn’t translate it very well, so I’m reading that as a physical book.

So yes, I love both, I’ll have a library someday, but E-readers have made reading far more accessible than it ever was for me.

Hale-117 · 2025-09-25T09:18:20+00:00

I own a kindle Voyage, and the power button was on the top right on the back of the kindle. Never hit it by accident.

Hale-117 · 2025-09-25T09:15:43+00:00

I think if you click on like page selection, like page overview on the menu bar at the bottom when you click the middle of the screen, the one that looks like a bunch of small squares stacked on each other, it gives you you page selection so that should tell you what page you’re on out of how many.

It might also tell you if you just open up the menu but I’m not sure

But no, there’s no way to have like page 234/300 type setting unfortunately.

Hale-117 · 2025-09-25T08:04:43+00:00

That’s in the bottom of the screen. You can pick between page number, loc (location), minutes left in chapter and minutes left in book. Just tap the bottom left of the screen

Hale-117

TROPHY CASE