Pat Peoples has just left a mental institution and now has
to adjust to life outside the ‘bad place’. He moves back in with his parents
and tries to work out what he’s going to do. The thing he wants most is to be
reunited with his wife Nikki but no one around him will talk about her. Pat
slowly discovers that he has been in the ‘bad place’ for years rather than
months and that Nikki has moved on. His friend Ronnie sets him up with his
sister-in-law, Tiffany, and together they form an unlikely friendship. Tiffany’s
husband died and she had a break down. They are both damaged and end up helping
each other, going running together and visiting a local diner. Pat struggles to
come to terms with what happened before his mental collapse and how different
life is now. He is constantly looking for his silver lining but won’t
necessarily get what he wants.
I didn’t massively like Pat as a character but he is very
damaged. At the beginning of the book he is very childlike and relies on his
mother to help him. He focuses on getting fit in order to win Nikki back. That
is his sole train of thought throughout. He believes that she is his silver
lining and he can make himself worthy of her. With the help of his mother,
brother Jake, friend Ronnie and therapist Cliff, Pat resumes a somewhat normal
life. His mother takes him shopping; his brother takes him to football games and
Ronnie takes him out to places like the beach. Tiffany is an interesting
character as she seems manipulative but she is also vulnerable. I would have liked
to spend some time in her mind just to see what was going on in there.
There is a lot of American Football running through the
whole book which confused me greatly. I have no idea about any teams or how to
play the game and what the players do. I have no interest in knowing either. I
understand that it was an important piece of bonding for the males in the book
but I struggled with it. The atmosphere and camaraderie of the game was
emphasised but I just couldn’t imagine how it could take over a whole town like
that. That part of the novel would definitely help if you were an American
reader.
Pat sees his life as being a movie. He has hit a low point
and the only way is up. That’s the way it works in movies; it seems as if the
couple will never get back together and then, after several near misses, they
finally are reunited in their happy ending. Pat believes this is going to
happen with Nikki and himself. He is told she has a restraining order against
him but that’s a mistake; if he can just talk to her, just see her even,
everything will be fine. It added a bittersweetness to the book; Pat knowing
exactly what’s going to happen but it never does.
At the beginning of the book I wasn’t sure what all the fuss
was about; I didn’t like Pat and I couldn’t see myself liking him at any point.
He grew on me though. You can’t help but feel for him. He really wants his
silver lining; wants it so much he’s blind to the fact that he won’t get it. I
thought the issue of mental illness was handled well here and portrayed
realistically. There’s no quick fix for this; it takes years to work through it
and find a new normal. By the end of the book Pat ends up being and better and
stronger person than ever. It’s not easy or simple but with a little bit of
help it gradually gets better. It’s a good book with a nice message and I
enjoyed it more than I thought I was going to. I would recommend people give
this book a read, it may surprise you.
Overall rating 4 out of 5.
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