(opinion article)

I’ve read many bestsellers that somehow justified their popularity. Yes, not all of them were great, but they were still good enough to understand why people enjoy reading them.

It’s hard for me to choose one example of a very good bestseller, because one way or another, it will still have readers who think the work is overrated. The more popular a book is, the more fans and haters it has. However, now I’m going to review ‘The Silent Patient’ by Alex Michaelidis. It’s a medical detective story with a touch of thriller about a girl who, after her husband’s murder, stopped talking forever. It’s a splendid story that’s worth giving a chance, because the ending brought me to emotions I’ve never experienced before! I could talk for hours about this wonderful book and the impression of an incredible and masterful turn of events! The way the narrative turned into a crazy epiphany when all the puzzles fit together, but you still don’t believe that the author did this to you – this is the art of words! Unpredictability is the key that all bestsellers need!

As a bad example, I’ll choose ‘Funny You Should Ask,’ the debut adult novel by Elissa Sussman. It’s obvious that it’s a debut. The author wanted to create an exciting experience of reading reports and blogs that retell the events of the book and the actions of our characters in the present. But she jumps so much from the past to the future that you just get confused about what’s happening at all. First you read the report, and then the same events are described in the book, only with more details and dialogues. The idea seems cool, but its realization leaves much to be desired. In the end, it was boring and slow. Relationships and events in the book are uninteresting and undynamic. It feels like nothing happens in the book. So I read 400 pages about nothing and schmothing…with a weird way of narration.