Hello and happy Sunday. I’m one day “late” in my uploading schedule because I wanted to be true to last week’s promise. If you don’t remember, I said that this week I was going to tell you about a new book I’d been reading. Like I told you last week, I was super busy at work and couldn’t get any reading done then, but I used my time at home wisely and I thoroughly enjoyed The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick.

Now, this is the fourth book by this author I have the pleasure of reading, and it was amazing. I’d been skeptical because the last book I’d read from him was a disappointment (compared to the others from him I’d read in the past.) You have to understand that Matthew Quick is probably one of my favorite English-speaking authors and that I absolutely adore his writing style and his quirky characters and the way he gives a visibility to people who usually aren’t even in the background of other people’s stories. I love Matthew Quick and I loved The Silver Linings Playbook, although if you haven’t read anything by him, I wouldn’t suggest starting with this particular novel.

This is the story of Pat, who gets released from the mental health facility he’s been in for years. We follow Pat as he goes back to living with his parents and tries to be on his best behavior so that his wife agrees to see him again. As you can imagine, this journey is full of realizations, like the fact that he’d been at the mental health facility for years instead of months, and that his marriage has been over for about as long. We also follow Tiffany, who’s introduced to Pat by Ronnie, his best friend from high school and Veronica, Ronnie’s wife and Tiffany’s sister. That’s about it for the synopsis, I think.

I recommend Matthew Quick to everyone, but I’d especially recommend this book to people in their late twenties or above who need a reminder that it’s not too late to rewrite the script of our lives or start filming an entirely different movie altogether. If you haven’t watched the movie, I’d also recommend it, but remember that both the novel and movie adaptation are separate and unique forms of art and one was not intended to be the exact copy of the other.

Have you read anything by Matthew Quick? What did you think?