The Silver Linings Playbook

by Matthew Quick

"The Silver Linings Playbook" is the riotous and poignant story of how one man regains his memory and comes to terms with the magnitude of his wife's betrayal.During the years he spends in a neural health facility, Pat Peoples formulates a theory about silver linings: he believes his life is a movie produced by God, his mission is to become physically fit and emotionally supportive, and his happy ending will be the return of his estranged wife, Nikki. When Pat goes to live with his parents, everything seems changed: no one will talk to him about Nikki; his old friends are saddled with families; the Philadelphia Eagles keep losing, making his father moody; and his new therapist seems to be recommending adultery as a form of therapy.When Pat meets the tragically widowed and clinically depressed Tiffany, she offers to act as a liaison between him and his wife, if only he will give up watching football, agree to perform in this year's Dance Away Depression competition, and promise not to tell anyone about their 'contract.' All the while, Pat keeps searching for his silver lining.

• ISBN10: 0374264260
• ISBN13: 9780374264260
• Publish Date: 2 September 2008 (first published 1 September 2008)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 21 April 2010
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 304
• Language: English

Reviews

[nitzan_schwarz]

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD. PLEASE BE WARNED.

Please don't take out the pitchforks and torches, but I just don't get the huge love for this book. It's not a bad book by any means... but it's not great, either.

Pat's voice and inner monologue is so, so, so young. Here is a man who used to be a history teacher, and a coach, and by all means used to live a regular and normative life, even if he might have been mean to his wife (which, less be honest, he learned from his jerk of a father. His poor, poor mom). In the end, I couldn't grasp whether this inner voice was intentionally young, and if so--is this a result of you know what, or is this how it's always been? Either way, it made me uncomfortable to think of this man (who sounded like a boy in my head no matter how much I tried giving him a more grownup voice) being married.

Then there is the fact in the end, I felt like nothing was properly explained. I waited almost 95% of the book to hear the story (which honestly kind of pissed me off, because the only reason I was interested is to figure out what the fuck happened in his past), and still there were a ton of holes and unclear information and even at the end of the novel I didn't have a full picture, and for some people this might be just fine and dandy but I ended up feeling awfully cheated by the whole thing.

And then, one can't ignore this being a kind of mediocre love story at best. At the end of the day, this story is supposed to chronicle both the healing of Pat and his love story with Tiffany. Only we get nothing of that sort. Instead, we get a lukewarm insta love on Tiffany's end, and no feeling of love on Pat's. He was still all Nikki, Nikki, Nikki up to the last chapter, for god's sake! I couldn't sense any feelings of love from his end, only a mild awakening perhaps to the small possibility of maybe.

To me, this book failed on many levels. I can't say it's a bad book because in all honesty, it made me tear up in places and I felt for some of the characters, but I also can't say I thought it was a good book. I really wanted to adore this :(

Side-note: I think this probably worked a lot better as a movie, which I do plan to watch at some sort. Taking out Pat's narration will immediately take away one of the things I didn't connect with, and let's be honest - It's easy to believe someone will fall in love with JLaw as she is such a beautiful lady, so I could probably believe the love story as well haha

[mary]

I didn't really know what to expect of this book. But I really loved Pat's narrative voice. He's observant and very straightforward, which made him very (unintentionally funny. I thought Tiffany was such a fun character and I found her story very engrossing.

Overall, this book had a lot of heart, honesty, and emotional high points in the store. Great, realistic characters as well which is incredibly important for me to enjoy a novel.

[Kelly]

http://divainpyjamas.blogspot.com.au/

This book wasn't at all what I expected. I assumed it would have been practically the same as the film adaptation with Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, but it had a completely different feel.

The book isn't a funny, romantic comedy. It's quite depressing and sad. Pat's mental health is never discussed clinically, apart from his aggressive tendencies and angry outbursts, you never truly know what the prognosis was that landed Pat in the mental hospital for years. The book also outlines the issues surrounding how people diagnosed with mental illnesses are treated and the effect of the support network. The main theme of the book is relationships, mostly strained. That between Pat and his father, Pat's parents, his therapist, between Pat and Tiffany and with his estranged wife. Pat's inner dialogue isn't that of a man in his thirties, you will find yourself wondering how old Pat really is. At times it is extremely childlike and frantic, almost borderline hyperactive. It felt more as though Pat might have had a cognitive disability, than mental illness.

Basically, if your looking for a fun romance, this isn't it. There IS no romance, only unrequited love, from several parties. An intelligent read, but sadly not for me.

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

Pat Peoples is a former history teacher who moves back home after spending some time in a neurology hospital. He has a theory that every life is like a movie and he is just waiting for his silver lining ending, the successful reunion with his wife Nikki. Pat spends his time on self improvement, determined this will help end ‘apart time’, he exercises excessively and reads great American literature. He meets Tiffany and soon becomes friends because of their similarities; physically fit and clinically depressed.

While this started off reminding me of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I soon got really bored with this book. Not only was the novel predictable, it was clichéd and failed to hold my interest at all. The narrative felt really dumbed down, like it was trying more to be a YA novel; actually this might be a good example of New Adult fiction. But this really annoyed me, just because someone is clinically depressed, an exercise junky, football fan or any of the other reasons doesn’t mean they are not intelligent. So the narrative felt more like the author making fun of the protagonist and I really had a problem with that.

There are so many great American novels and when Pat sets out to read the entire syllabus of his wife’s class to improve himself you can’t help but be proud of him. The Bell Jar, The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises are all great books but they don’t really fit into Pat’s philosophy on life. I love the way he reacts to The Sun Also Rises in the movie trailer, it was done so much better than in the book, that rage for the ending was brilliant. I know Pat wants a silver lining in every story, so I found it really amusing to think he would read those books that don’t fit his personal philosophy.

Personally I did want to explore more of the depression side of this novel because I felt there were some very interesting elements explored but instead the author was more interested in a clichéd romance. There were two love stories going on here, the generic one between Pat and Tiffany, and then there was the love of Philadelphia Eagles. Personally the Eagles story arc was more interesting because the Pat and Tiffany relationship was painful to read.

I’m not a fan of clichés and reading about Pat and Tiffany become a real problem with me; I knew what was going to happen, I can see it coming from the start but it wasn’t executed properly. Almost like the author was running out of pages and he had to quickly resolve and conflict and have a happy ending before the end of the book. The conflict resolution was done too quickly; you can’t really go from hating a person to changing your mind and kissing a person that quick, it just doesn’t work.

There are small elements of this book that I enjoyed but the overall novel wasn’t worth it. I will say one thing about this book; it will make a great movie. I’ve not seen the adaptation yet but I have a feeling it would work really well in that format, as people just love a happy ending and these types of romance movies. Personally I think the book isn’t work reading and maybe the movie is a quicker way to experience this story.

This review orginally appeared on my blog; http://literary-exploration.com/2013/03/20/book-review-the-silver-linings-playbook/