Reviews

The Maid by Nita Prose

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terrym10's review against another edition

4.0

This book was just delightful! The main character was so likable & refreshingly different. The plot itself is simple, but well told. I had the murderer narrowed down to two people, and one of them was indeed the culprit. I would really enjoy a sequel to this one!

ashleighyoung's review against another edition

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3.0

6.5/10 - so was this good, yes? but was it very thriller-y? not really, now was it technically classified as a mystery? yeah, but nothing like shocked me, nothing was mysterious, there was no like at the edge of my seat happening in this book, everything was v predictable, also the narrator/main girly is a little autistic/asperger-y & she is taken advantage of the majority of the book & i just don’t like when characters are bullied bc like it hits close to home, bc i was a nerdy loser in high school lol (jk i still am but now it’s trendy

miihaaelaa22's review against another edition

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3.0

3,5 ⭐️

leastrawberryfields's review against another edition

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3.0

3/5 stars (probably)

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this one. The book was certainly very compelling and I had an enjoyable time reading it, but there were some notable issues.

Firstly, while the main character was interesting and likable, it did sort of feel like the author googled "autism symptoms" and mashed those traits together to create the main character. It did not feel authentic; to an extent, the character felt more like a caricature, and that didn't sit right with me. The character is also frequently described in ways that are passive-aggressively degrading (such as "special" or "different") and the story played into a lot of harmful stereotypes about autistic people. The character is clearly being made fun of and/or taken advantage of by other characters a lot, and her inability to understand this is a big part of the plot, which I didn't really care for. I should also note that the character is never directly confirmed to be autistic (or neurodivergent at all) but the characterization is heavy-handed and I didn't think it was handled well overall.

My other main complaint is somewhat spoilery, so I won't go into detail. Essentially, I'm not a huge fan of unreliable narration / intentional omission from the narrator in mystery novels. This novel doesn't actually feel like a mystery novel because the central plot isn't a "whodunnit" but rather about how the main character can get out of a sticky situation, so it's okay to some extent, but that's just not so much to my liking.

I settled on 3/5 because I truly don't think this is a bad book. Like I said, it was an enjoyable read that was certainly never boring or dry, it just had some major flaws.