Hester’s Books Mid-Month Reading Round-Up!

Have you picked up your February book yet?? In January we launched the first ever Radiogram Reading Challenge, inviting all you readers to make this your New Year’s resolution, too! Hester’s Books on the Square heard the call and has made it even easier to participate with hand-picked book selections to match each month’s theme. This month, we’re reading “Books written in non-chronological order.”
Now, “non-chronological” may sound like a daunting word, but it simply means a book that doesn’t read in a straight timeline from start to finish. Of the 4 books Hester’s suggested to us, I chose to pick up a copy of The Silent Patient, by Alex Michaelides. I’ll admit, this one wasn’t the one I was inclined towards, which would have been All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr (because I cheated and watched the trailer for the movie on Netflix). But what are resolutions for if not a chance to break out of your comfort zone?! So I went with the thriller.
At first, the book was a bit difficult to commit to. The story does not begin with the main character, Theo Faber, but rather in the diary of the woman who will eventually become his patient, the “silent patient”, Alicia Berenson (spoiler alert!). After murdering her husband, Gabriel, Alicia ceases to speak and is reprimanded to a mental health facility, where Theo eventually comes to work. The book continues to go back and forth from Theo to Alicia, examining their personal lives, past and present, as well as the parts they’ve come to share together. The more I know about them, the easier it gets to keep reading, and the harder it is to put it down! With only a few chapters left, I am dying to see how their complex relationship plays out.
If you’d like to get in on the action, head down to Hester’s Books on the Square and grab yourself a copy today! Or, if the plot of this story doesn’t strike your fancy, we’ve got two more suggestions for you: Idaho, another psychological thriller, by Emily Ruskovich, and The Passenger, one of a two-part series, by Pulitzer Prize winner Cormac McCarthy. Two weeks is plenty of time, when you’re lost in a book not contained by it - so get reading, folks! - MG

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