Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - The Maid

Read it in one evening. Several chuckles. Nice to see a neurodiverse character. A bit cheesy at times but there were some twists I didn’t expect and a lovely message of embracing who you are.

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samburkhouse's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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anekk78's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Only minutes into this book it became one of my favorites ever! It is beautiful book about human relations with a murder sprinkled over. And the main character is an Eleanor Olyphant type character, you’ll either live her or hate her.

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annaofjesup's review against another edition

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hopeful lighthearted mysterious relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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misskitty14's review against another edition

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emotional funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Many murder mysteries are helmed by a neurodivergent detective (Holmes, Poirot, Monk), but most of them rarely get into how their mind works and even fewer acknowledge the challenges faced by these characters' disability (their attention to detail is simply a superpower). The main character of the novel, Molly Gray, is neurodivergent but this does not make her a superhuman detective. Instead, the reader comes to realize how much Molly doesn't see or understand because of the way her mind works. It can be frustrating at times to watch as she trusts the wrong people and misunderstands situations that are very obvious to the rest of us. I've heard many people with neurodiversity discuss how they hate that their disability is oftentimes represented as a superpower rather than an actual disability (comedian Fern Brady has a whole stand-up about it). Overall, I found this aspect of the novel to be incredibly educational and led to increased empathy on my part.

The reason I don't give this book 5 stars is because of the ending. Prose fell into the classic murder mystery trope of keeping valuable information from the reader.

From the beginning our main character knows who killed Mr. Black (it isn't anyone ever put on our radar) but never tells anyone or discusses it in her own mind.

Before I got to the end of the novel, I thought I figured out the answer, which seemed very obvious from the beginning, but I was impressed by how the pieces had come together. Instead, like all other murder mystery authors before her, Prose decides to justify a left-field answer by withholding information from the reader, information that should be known to us since we are inside Molly's head.

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dev921's review against another edition

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emotional informative mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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chondritesandchondrites's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The Maid is a difficult book to review. Like most mysteries, the first half of the book is set up and the second half is about revealing answers. Once I hit the midway point in this novel, I really started to enjoy it. It was fast paced, playful, and unexpected. I was incredibly invested, and had trouble putting the book down. At one point, I was crying while reading.

All this said, I nearly didn’t get to the mid point of this book. The first half I found slow and difficult to read. I felt, at times, that the author did not trust the reader as certain points were repeated with a heavy hand. Additionally, Molly’s social awkwardness plays a key role in this book, but it also feels over done to the point of caricature.

I’ve seen other readers speculating on whether Molly is autistic. There is no point in the book where Molly is identified as such, and that’s honestly a good thing. It would be a very poor representation of an autistic person.

As such— I give this book 3.5. While readers might have to weather the first half of the book, the second half is a great read and incredibly fun.

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