Truth - I had watched the movie version first and I do find it oddly attracted to the movie in many ways (the performance, the story, the theme) that I truly enjoy it a lot. What I did not was reading the book first. I had this with me for a year over now and last month, I decided (based on a mention) to read it and it was then, I never thought how honest this book turns out to be. There are many realistic themes about this book that makes it not just sad but emotional, troubled but relief and undeniable but real... because in reality, there are no happy endings. Just closure.

Pat Peoples was released from an institution he could not remember why he was there in the first place. At age 34, staying with his parents is the only way he could recuperate his mental health. With a football season starting, Pat has to improve himself physically and started reading books to return to his wife Nikki, so that his 'apart time' is over. He can't wait to go back to his wife until he befriends Tiffany, his friend's wife sister and the secrets they both block and keep together in their own way to come to terms with their hearts and mind.

Its not easy to write characters that are broken and in ways, how damage they become. I can relate a lot with Pat Peoples and most of all, people who do not understand him well. Much like how TiffanyPats and his family and friends, the joy and happiness and the opposite of it. The anger and opinions about the books Pat reads and how he needs help from people he never expect. Its what I believe why this book works because its real. For me - a real positive message is better than a hopeless positive message advice given and for a long time now, I never thought I would read a book that really hits it. Although the movie adaptation and the book had a lot of difference in terms of content, both in their own way is good except I like the book better.

My first 2018 book rated very highly because this book makes me feel in so many ways that I can say I loved it a lot and its one of my favorite reads. I would highly recommend to readers who doesn't believe happy endings are real but believe that we are all part of life to who wants to be happy but not in a Disney way.

A football fanatic named Pat has just been released from a neural health facility. He’s eager to reconcile with his ex-wife and get back to watching his favorite football team, but the world seems so different. He soon learns that he has been in the facility for four years, and he can’t remember what happened during that time.

I went into this book knowing nothing about it. I haven’t seen the movie, and I didn’t read the synopsis, but a lot of people have recommended this book to me, so I thought, Why not?

I was pleasantly surprised. The story is so quirky that I flew through it. I finished most of the book in a day because I couldn’t put it down. It’s a quick and entertaining read.

Pat is an unusual narrator. He’s 35 years old, but he has the mind of a child. I enjoyed seeing the world from his perspective and reading about his family dynamics. He’s very reliant on his mother and brother, but his father wants nothing to do with him. The only time that his father will speak to him is when they are watching football. It’s an interesting relationship. I felt bad for Pat because he really wants to please his father, but his father isn’t interested in interacting with him.

I really like that this book gives the reader a glimpse into “football culture.” I’m not a football fan, but I know that some people take it very seriously. The scenes of Pat and his family during the games are intense, hilarious, and believable.

Even though I enjoyed reading from Pat’s point-of-view, I found the inconsistencies in his character frustrating. The author never tells the reader why Pat is so childish. Before Pat went into the neural health facility, he had a wife, a job, a house, and a college education. I assumed that his childishness came from a brain injury/brain damage that he got as an adult. But, the author never says, and Pat’s behavior is inconsistent. For example, he’s capable of reading and understanding classic American literature, but he has a very childish vocabulary. Also, he can analyze the complex plots of books, but he easily believes that a burglar broke in and stole nothing but his wedding photos. That seems odd to me. Not fully understanding Pat’s behavior was frustrating enough to distract me from the story.

Overall, I did like this peculiar book. Reading it has made me curious about the movie. I’ve heard that it’s very good, so I’ll have to track down a copy.

This book follows Pat Persons as he deals with reintegrating in life following a stay at a neurological health facility, he can't remember swaths of time and is completely obsessed with bettering himself to win Nikki, his wife, back. During this reintegrating he befriends Tiffany, his best friends sister in law, who is depressed and rather manic. Through out the book we get to see the impact of Pat's mental health on his family and friends, from Pat's perspective.

I thought this book was really interesting. I enjoyed seeing things through Pat's perspective especially the way it impacted his family.  One thing that did drive me nuts through the whole book was the way Pat always said "apart time", though I understand it as a character choice. I thought Pat's family was really interesting and found the superstitious nature of football fascinating.  What I didn't love was the way that Tiffany seems to irrationally hate the sport because it was never even remotely explained.  Which maybe the point, to play up her crazy, but still it just seemed like a device to play up Pat's sacrifice for the dance.

Also in some ways I got a MPDG vibe from Tiffany even though she doesn't really fit the description given her whole mental health situation and selfish/selfless choices.

I didn't read as many books as I wanted this year but all the books in my top 14 have a special place in my heart. I know that a lot of these books aren't the most well written books. I know that. But these are the books that had the more fun reading(The selection, TSDoLB....), that made me cry(ItSB...), that made me laught, that took my breath away...

So to cut a long story short, those are the books that I enjoyed the most:

Top 14 Books of 2014!

1.Into the still blue by Veronica Rossi

2.The program by Suzane Young

3.The secret diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su and Kate Rorick

4.The Selection series(yup, a full series,it's my to 2014 so it's my rules;) by Kiera Cass

5.Silver shadows by Richelle Mead

6.The madman's daughter by Megan Sheperd

7.On the island by Tracey Garvis Graves

8.Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Galbadon

9.Quintana of Charyn by Melina Marchetta

10.The trap by Andrew Fukuda

11.The Bone season by Samantha Shannon

12.The silver linings playbook by Matthew Quick

13.The farm by Emily McKay

14.Cress by Marissa Meyer

19/12 - Pat's way of thinking reminds me, quite a bit, of the main character in There are Reasons Noah Packed No Clothes, which was set in the mental institution rather than after the character's release from it.

The fact that Pat constantly gives the return of Nikki as the reason for him practicing 'being nice rather than right' is disappointing and a bit foreboding. I foresee the revelation of where Nikki is and what she's really been doing all these years as being something that could completely reverse Pat's attitude on silver linings and bring out his more violent tendencies. If he has no other reason for becoming a nicer, better person and then suddenly loses that one reason (as I believe he's about to), what reason will he have to continue to be a nice person (at least on the outside, he's not particularly nice internally, it's just a front he's putting on in his attempt to get Nikki back)? I think that one of the main 'secrets' that his family and friends have been keeping from him will turn out to be that Nikki has divorced him in his absence and remarried. When Pat finally works this out I imagine there's going to be some kind of nuclear explosion that will land him back in 'the bad place'.

I'm not sure I understand how Pat can be so oblivious to the time that has passed while he was in 'the bad place', even if there weren't any calendars to help tell the months apart and they weren't showing the news (probably so the bad news didn't upset the more fragile patients), unless he had to be kept sedated in order to keep him calm and that made time pass without Pat even noticing. That would be an awful thing to find out - coming out of a mental institution thinking you've been gone a few months only to eventually find out that you've lost nearly four years of your life - it sounds like some kind of mental institution-themed horror movie. To be continued...

21/12 - On page 138 - I wonder what could be in the 'Pat box' that could upset Pat so much... Could it be divorce papers signed by his mother in his mental and physical absence? To be continued...

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!

23/12 - Alright, so the divorce papers weren't in the 'Pat box', but I correctly picked that they existed at all. I was also pretty sure about the identity of the author of the letters Tiffany was giving to Pat due to the amount of compliments 'Nikki' was paying to Tiffany. I didn't think it rang true that Nikki, who hadn't previously been acquainted with Tiffany, would become quite so friendly with Tiffany simply through phone calls revolving around dictated letters to and from Pat.

I'm not sure that I could have forgiven Tiffany if I was in Pat's shoes. All the lies and sneaky tricks she pulled on Pat, that would permanently mar any relationship I'd had with this supposed friend. I may have been able to continue being in contact with them, but I don't think I'd ever be able to fully trust them again, especially not when it comes to a romantic relationship.

Now that I've read this I have more of a desire to see the movie. I thought this was 'above average', 3.5 stars nearing 4 and I'm feeling generous so I've marked it as 4. Considering that rating I don't know exactly why it (out of all the books published every year) was chosen to be turned into a movie. I look forward to seeing the movie in order to compare the two and see what led to so many nominations for the Oscars and the Golden Globes.