The Patient by Jasper DeWitt

☆☆☆☆☆
ebook, 224 pages
Expected publication: July 7th 2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
About the Book:
In a series of online posts, Parker H., a young psychiatrist, chronicles the harrowing account of his time working at a dreary mental hospital in New England. Through this internet message board, Parker hopes to communicate with the world his effort to cure one bewildering patient. We learn, as Parker did on his first day at the hospital, of the facility’s most difficult, profoundly dangerous case—a forty-year-old man who was originally admitted to the hospital at age six. This patient has no known diagnosis. His symptoms seem to evolve over time. Every person who has attempted to treat him has been driven to madness or suicide. Desperate and fearful, the hospital’s directors keep him strictly confined and allow minimal contact with staff for their own safety, convinced that releasing him would unleash catastrophe on the outside world. Parker, brilliant and overconfident, takes it upon himself to discover what ails this mystery patient and finally cure him. But from his first encounter with the mystery patient, things spiral out of control, and, facing a possibility beyond his wildest imaginings, Parker is forced to question everything he thought he knew.

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this author but I was pleasantly surprised. I found myself not wanting to put the book down. The story gives the reader a taste of what the world is like inside an asylum for the mentally ill. I enjoyed the way the story was told via blog posts, you were inside Doctor H's head the whole time. There were definitely plot twists and turns- a few predictable but mostly unexpected for me. I think this storyline is just fantastic.

Overall, this is an fascinating story, it kept my attention and I read it in one sitting. The writing is superb. Jasper DeWitt can put together a scene while creating easy, readable prose. I was impressed with the ending, it was climatic and nail bitingly exciting. The comparisons to Stephen King are spot on. All. The. Stars.

Thank you NetGalley, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Jasper DeWitt for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an impartial review; all opinions are my own.

#ThePatient #NetGalley