Reviews with content warning for Terminal illness - The Maid

Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

The Maid by Nita Prose

110 reviews

davinmotion's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful inspiring mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

What a fun mystery with a plucky heroine! For some reason I thought of her as a fashionable Amelia Bedelia, despite not having read those books in decades. She has heart of gold and a clever way with words. I sincerely hope to see more characters like her.

If you want a fun, light-hearted mystery with a lot of memorable characters, I highly recommend this one.

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smsegal's review against another edition

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adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

4.25

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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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auliarach's review against another edition

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emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

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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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keishac13's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-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? It's complicated

3.0

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kristinj1's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

This was an enjoyable, fast read. Molly, the main character, felt like she was fully realized and had been thoughtfully written. I really enjoyed the premise of Molly having some sort of social processing challenges, without it ever being named specifically. I liked all the characters I was meant to like and would read about that band of friends again.

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