The Silent Patient

by Alex Michaelides

Somehow grasping at vanishing snowflakes is like grasping at happiness: an act of possession that instantly gives way to nothing.

The end of the novel links up with this. People often ask me why the end of the book references snowflakes. It’s because in the final moments of his story, Theo thinks back to a brief moment in his childhood when he felt free and life was full of possibility.