Goodreads Review: The Silver Linings Playbook

The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So Ken does movie reviews and I do the reviews of books-turned-to-movies...

I wanted to see the enormously popular film version of The Silver Linings Playbook starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, but of course never got around to it. But as soon as I discovered it was a book before it was a film, I put the novel on my reading list. I still haven't gotten around to seeing the movie, but the book is every bit as sweet and quirky as the movie trailers seemed. With his debut novel, Matthew Quick has created what is at one part love story, one part compassionate take on mental illness, one part look at the passions of Philadelphia Eagles fans, and all parts addictively readable story about the silver linings that aren't the ones we are expecting.

The novel's main strength is its narration, as it gets inside the head of a mentally unstable but endearingly optimistic and goodhearted man. When The Silver Linings Playbook begins, narrator Pat Peoples has just returned to his parents' house in New Jersey upon his release from what he calls "the bad place," a Baltimore mental institution. In the film, Pat's diagnosis is bipolar disorder, but the novel does not give Pat a diagnosis. It is obvious, however, that he is quite out of touch with reality, to the point of having no sense of how long he spent in the institution. Despite this and his tendency to outbursts of violence upon hearing Kenny G music, Pat is determined to better himself, and the trip Quick gives the reader inside this character's psyche is compassionate and respectful, humorous and at times hilarious without being condescending.

As the novel's title suggests, Pat is devoted to a philosophy of silver linings and unfettered optimism. Headless of what everyone around him says, his one goal upon returning home is reunion with his estranged wife, Nikki. But then he meets Tiffany, a recently widowed woman with demons of her own, who is set on changing Pat's life in ways he hadn't anticipated.

In his effort to woo back English teacher Nikki, Pat begins reading classic literature, from The Great Gatsby to The Scarlet Letter to The Bell Jar, and his interpretation of these novels according to his silver linings philosophy is in my mind a brilliant way for Quick to establish Pat's worldview and his mental state.

While we don't receive the same opportunity to live inside the heads of the other characters, they are equally easy to root for, or at times to want to scream at. Tiffany is sullen and foul-mouthed and yet obviously sensitive and vulnerable as well. Pat's mom is patient, strong, and compassionate, while his dad is temperamental and distant and bases his moods and treatment of his loved ones upon how the Eagles are doing. I even developed a strong picture of Nikki in my head through Pat's detailed stories and descriptions. Some characters, like Pat's therapist Cliff, who also happens to be an Eagles fan and his "black friend" Danny, seem less well-rounded and believable, but they too are memorable.

Non-football fans may not be interested in the large number of scenes in the novel dealing with the Philadelphia Eagles, but this serves to ground the book in time and place and makes Pat's character (although maybe not his over-the-top father's) seem more believable. The Eagles, win or lose, play as much of a role in Pat's life outside the mental institution as Tiffany does and as Nikki did in his old life.

As the novel unfolds, Pat slowly comes to grips with what brought him to the mental institution and with the new reality of his. While his story does not have the happy ending he was expecting, reunion with Nikki, it nevertheless affirms love and silver linings. It is not the conventional happy-ending-fairy-tale type story, but that's what makes The Silver Linings Playbook so refreshing, believable, and true.

I would rank the novel 4.5 out of 5 stars, but since Goodreads doesn't allow for half-stars, 4 stars it is.

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