Reviews - The Housemaid | The StoryGraph

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60.5k reviews for:

The Housemaid

Freida McFadden

4.08 AVERAGE

aditi_35's review against another edition

3.75

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

elisenopheim's review against another edition

2.0

dark tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I knew going into this book that I wasn't reading it because it was a masterpiece, and that was okay. I read it because I wanted a cheesy thriller, and to be so fair, I got it!

The prose is...fine? Very mechanical. Since it's written in first person, Millie's internal monologue got on my nerves; McFadden hates letting any kind of subtext sit, or leaving any kind of room for interpretation, so everything is very clearly spelled out through lots and lots of rumination. Dialogue was clunky, and all of the characters felt so cartoonish that I had a hard time believing any of them were real. With psychological thrillers, so much of it relies on being invested in the characters, and I just... wasn't really interested in anyone in this book.

The plot twist wasn't great either. Is it a big twist? Yes, but again, because it was all so cartoonish, I didn't feel invested in anyone enough to really care. The twist was also revealed SPOILER:

at the midpoint

, which left the third act feeling completely lost and low-stakes, as I didn't have to sit there and wonder how everything would fall into place;

all of that was explicitly spelled out by Nina herself.

I think I would've had an easier time believing the batshit crazy 4D-chess game of this novel if the characters had shown on the page that they were smart--but they didn't.

We spend half the book in Millie's head, half in Nina's, and both of them are quite stupid!

So while the thriller twist is quite intricate, I can't bring myself to believe that these characters could've orchestrated any of it. None of it felt natural or believable.

Weirdly enough, the reason this book isn't 1-star is because it stuck it's landing oddly well. Maybe it's just because the rest of the book was so bad, but that final scene

at Andrew's wake

wasn't horrible at all.

Nina's interactions with his mother were surprisingly good, and I thought her reveal opened a lot of interesting doors for her character.

I was positively gobsmacked that the epilogue of the book actually made for a good segue into the rest of the series. The concept of

Millie just being this vigilante, maid-for-hire that helps women kill their abusive husbands is just cool!!

Never did I think the sequel bait portion of a shitty thriller would actually give me a pretty high-concept series, but here I am.

Anyway, TLDR, do not go into this book expecting a masterpiece. If you have a couple hours to kill, and can suspend your disbelief an ungodly amount, it's nothing else if not entertaining.

tessademeer's review against another edition

4.5

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

softrosemint's review against another edition

2.0

Oh, OK, so see, the first novel by McFadden I read was "Do You Remember?" which was picked by my local book club. And this was just... quite similar? Not particularly creative, with a couple of plot holes, but still insanely easily devourable. You almost need to respect its readability, even if McFadden's writing is otherwise pedestrian and even if the literary value is negligible.

(This is a positive review, by the way. I had a positive experience.)