Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Maidens

Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

588 reviews

filipa_maia's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

2.0

I'm not a huge fan of 'The Silent Patient' and I found this book even less enjoyable. I definitely don't like Alex Michaelides' writing, I always feel like his books could be movie scripts. That is something that don't work for me.

Overall I liked the plot. The story is well built and the characters are interesting with complex and very dark backgrounds but the ending... my God... Why? I didn't like it one bit. It definitely subverted expectations but was completely unnecessary.

I enjoyed the "crossover" with 'The Silent Patient' though.

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sophiecarbs's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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rachel1106's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Ending was a tad rushed and a little predictable. Buildup was good. Characters were ok. A little bland. Everyone in this book has daddy issues, my lord.

I did not like how Sebastian was a pedo? Why couldn't Zoe have just been delusional and unwell and therefore fantasize about him wanting her, instead of him actually loving his 15 year old niece? That's so weird, and you already had Fosca sleeping with his barely legal students. It wasn't needed. I don't know why Sebastian needed to be a nasty criminal in order for Mariana to finally start to move on from him. So that way she could not be as traumatized by learning that her niece is a maniacal serial killer who used Mariana's good will and want to protect her daughter-like figure from the danger that her own serial killer niece made up? It's a tad much.

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dev921's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

3.5

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grace33's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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mxdegroot's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.0

There's so much still unclear, and I think that that's exactly the point.

Michaelides knows exactly how to write a fucked up story with fucked up characters without making it fundamentally problematic. In a lot of books with storylines centered around violence against women, you will see language that is inherently offensive. In The Maidens, this is not the case. For all the violence and manipulation, Michaelides has manages to write the story with respect. Every single character is messed up in a way, but they're still human.

The ending was all but perfect.

If Fosca had turned out to be the actual murderer, it would have been very satisfying, but Zoe's story and her motivations were a wonderful and yet heartbreaking plottwist, which is why I was so happy to see that she was not completely demonized in the epilogue. She was manipulated and used for such a long time and in such a fundamental way that she was still under its influence after her abuser died, and while this in no way excuses the murders she committed, she doesn't deserve to be completely villainized. Simultanuously, while Fosca isn't a murderer, he is still a pedophile and an abuser, and this is not erased, which I was very happy to read.

I am still confused about the character of Henry. He is severely messed up and straight up stalks Mariana throughout the book, and it is never really explained, nor does he appear much in the book after he 'attacks' Mariana. He is just never explained. There are some more small things that I felt could have been handled better, but I'll spare anyone reading this the excrutiatingly elaborate details of that.

While the ending is open and a little confusing, it worked perfectly for the story. Mariana already had trouble dealing with what she knows, and now she's expected to deal with revelations she couldn't have dared to imagine before. A lot of characters have a lot of recovery and development to go, so an open epilogue like this worked perfectly.

January 29th, 2024 - January 31st, 2024.

Reading about life was no preparation for living it; [Mariana] had learned this the hard way

Let me tell you something - this is what those old Greek plays are about. What it means to be human. What it meanst to be alive. And if you miss that when you read them - if all you see is a bunch of dead words - then you're missing the whole damn thing. I don't just mean in the plays - I mean in your lives, right now. If you're not aware of the transcendent, if you'ren ot awake to the glorious mystery of life and death that you're lucky enough to be part of - if that doesn't fill you with joy and strike you with awe... you might as wel not be alive. That's the message of the tragedies. Participate in the wonder. For your sake - for
Tara
's sake - live it."

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prdskat's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad 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? Yes

3.75

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mfox1015's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

It’s easy to feel drawn to suspect one character as the murderer but I felt suspicious of that. Didn’t see the twist coming. Solid thriller set on the academic world.

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lalinamarie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

A thriller that did shock me, just not in the way I was expecting it to. In the same note it disturbed me most when I was not expecting it.

By this I’m referencing finding out Sebastian had groomed Zoe
I’m assuming since he’d met her as a little girl. Made my stomach turn. Though I had a feeling Zoe was in on the murders, I did not expect that.

The one thing I really don’t like about this book is how they try to make psychoanalysis into something so simple. “I can see it in your eyes,” and things like that throughout the book made me roll my eyes as someone who actually works in the mental health field.

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lizfields's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.5

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