Being in quarantine for nearly three months now, finding ways to kill time is a must-have for many people. However, there is a solution to this predicament: reading! It not only kills time, but it also has substantial educational value.
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
One profound example is The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides.
The Silent Patient is about the mystery of Alicia, a well-off housewife, who suddenly decided to murder her husband. She refused to give any explanation for the incident, hence the name, The Silent Patient. However, criminal psychotherapist Theo Faber is determined to get Alicia to talk and unravel the mystery once and for all.
The book is a 336 paged psychological thriller full of mystery and intriguing plot twists. With a 4.09 star rating, and even winning the Goodreads Choice Award in 2019, it’s highly recommended to those who love suspense and unexpected endings.
When Darkness Loves Us by Elizabeth Engstrom
When Darkness Loves Us is a two-novella compilation. One is centered around young Sally Ann, while the other is centered around old Martha Mannes. In the first novella, Sally Ann, a newly married woman with a bright future, manages to become trapped underground. Through this experience, she discovers the looming dark side within herself. In the second novella, Martha Mannes was known to her community as a numbskull, born noseless. However, she wasn’t always this way. Her memories contain a monster, and only time could tell what that may bring.
When Darkness Loves Us is a horror fiction standing at 234 pages long, filled with excerpts bound to rattle your spine. This novel is viewed as a masterpiece, being rated an outstanding 4.05 stars on Goodreads. Its most loved features are within the style of writing, being beautiful, yet horrific at the same time. It’s also said that the stories are completely separate, yet so interconnected all at the same time. To make a long story short, it’s a highly recommended read.
Recursion by Blake Crouch
Recursion is about a fictional phenomenon called ‘False Memory Syndrome’. This gives its victims false memories of a fictional life instead of their own, which drives them mad. Neuroscientist Helena Smith believes she can cure this by successfully creating a machine that can tamper with the fabric of the past. With this, anyone could remember their real lives. However, this false reality had begun tearing the world apart, and it became apparent that it needed to be stopped. The message? Memory makes reality.
Recursion is a 336 page-long science fiction, similar to The Silent Patient in length. And similarly to The Silent Patient, it also won a Goodreads Choice Award in 2019, being rated 4.18 stars. It has a terrifying mind-warping concept, and its execution is nothing short of profound according to many. It’s definitely worth checking out if you have the time.
The Silence of Bones by June Hur
Time flies by when you’re having fun, so consider reading
The Silence of Bones is a murder mystery about a young orphan named Seol, who is tasked with assisting a young inspector to unravel the mystery of a woman’s murder. During their time together, Seol and the inspector developed a peculiar friendship. However, in a moment’s notice, the inspector became the prime suspect of the woman’s murder. At that point, Seol may have been the only one who could unravel the full truth. Being 336 pages long and rated 4.03 stars on Goodreads, it makes for a perfect time-burner. As the name suggests, The Silence of Bones is highly regarded as bone-rattling in content. The novel is said to have amazing examples of imagery that really brings the setting of 19th century Korea to life.