Review: The Silver Linings Playbook

The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Pat believes he has been in the "bad place", or the mental hospital, for only a few months but actually it's been more like four years. He believes that he and his wife, Nikki are separated and having an apart time but that will change soon as he is a changed man from what he was before. He is now fit and reading books to make himself more literate for his English teacher wife

Pat's mom comes and gets him out of the mental hospital on the condition that he goes and sees a therapist and lives with his parents. His new therapist is Dr. Cliff Patel and he's pretty cool in that he doesn't try to tell him to give up on getting Nikki back like his therapist in the hospital. He's also an Eagles fanatic which the two bond over. While in his waiting room he hears a song by Kenny G and he freaks out. Kenny G is his nemesis and the song "Songbird" is evil to him. He will sometimes see him at night in bed and will bang his head against the wall to try to get him to go away.

His old childhood friend Ronnie who had written to him while he was in the hospital stops by the house to see how's he's doing and to invite him over to dinner at his house with his wife Veronica and their young daughter. He and Nikki used to make fun of them, but Pat finds himself accepting the invitation. When he arrives he finds that someone else has been invited to the dinner: an older woman named Tiffany who is Veronica's sister and who is widowed and going through a rough time. Dinner is a stilted affair and when Pat walks Tiffany back to her parent's place where she lives in a trailer out back she tells him he can have sex with her if he wants and he tells her he is married and she says she is too. They both end up crying in each other's arms and go their separate ways.

Life with Pat's dad is difficult as he is a difficult man to be with. He is not an open man. He only seems to show up when there's an Eagles game on the television. And even then his mood depends on how well the Eagles are playing.

His brother Jake bought season tickets for Pat who once had them before he went into the hospital so the two of them and a friend of Jake's go to the home games. The Eagles winning or losing is important in this book because when the Eagles win his dad is in a better mood and more talkative--not by much, but a little bit. And things are easier on his long-suffering unappreciated mother when they win.

Tiffany has been following him around when he goes running and makes a proposition for him that will change his life. If he will do something for her she will do something really big for him that could be a game changer in the apart time being over. But he can't tell anyone about it. Not even his therapist. Will he do it?

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