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courtsbooks's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Stalking, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic relationship, and Violence
joramous's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship
e_flah's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-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
Wow, The Maidens made me very mad. The book starts off strong with a delightfully intriguing prologue and then everything seemed to go downhill from there. The two things that bugged me the most about The Maidens was the characterization of the female characters and the utter lack of tension.
Let's start with the characters. Mariana was such a flat, boring character that hearing the story narrated through her perspective was downright painful at times. What little character development we were given was often through telling rather than showing. If this had been done through the guise of an unreliable narrator, it could have added an interesting dimension to the story but instead it just made Mariana seem even more like a plot device than an actual character. To top it all off, her motivation for pursuing the mystery made little sense.
The other female characters in The Maidens, of which there are many, also received minimal characterization. What little the reader is given often relies heavily on stereotypes, such as the self-absorbed heiress. I expected to get to know the students that make up the Maidens within the story yet we barely learn the names of all of them. The rich, complex characterization is saved for the few male characters in the story, which infuriated me.
The other truly baffling thing about The Maidens was its utter lack of tension. This story is billed as a thriller and yet I felt absolutely no desire to keep reading to find out what was going to happen. It felt like there were no real stakes in The Maidens. The murders felt like they were happening completely outside of the plot. Mariana's "crime solving" efforts focused largely on her obsession with Edward Fosca. The short chapters seemed to speed up the book but masked a plot that lacked a strong driving force.
As both a thriller and a dark academia book, this was a huge disappointment. I honestly don't have anything good to say about The Maidens.
Let's start with the characters. Mariana was such a flat, boring character that hearing the story narrated through her perspective was downright painful at times. What little character development we were given was often through telling rather than showing. If this had been done through the guise of an unreliable narrator, it could have added an interesting dimension to the story but instead it just made Mariana seem even more like a plot device than an actual character. To top it all off, her motivation for pursuing the mystery made little sense.
The other female characters in The Maidens, of which there are many, also received minimal characterization. What little the reader is given often relies heavily on stereotypes, such as the self-absorbed heiress. I expected to get to know the students that make up the Maidens within the story yet we barely learn the names of all of them. The rich, complex characterization is saved for the few male characters in the story, which infuriated me.
The other truly baffling thing about The Maidens was its utter lack of tension. This story is billed as a thriller and yet I felt absolutely no desire to keep reading to find out what was going to happen. It felt like there were no real stakes in The Maidens. The murders felt like they were happening completely outside of the plot. Mariana's "crime solving" efforts focused largely on her obsession with Edward Fosca. The short chapters seemed to speed up the book but masked a plot that lacked a strong driving force.
As both a thriller and a dark academia book, this was a huge disappointment. I honestly don't have anything good to say about The Maidens.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Gore, and Murder
Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Grief, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual assault, Stalking, and Toxic relationship
thecriticalreader's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
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
0.25
I picked this out as my June Book of the Month because the premise sounded interesting. It was listed as a thriller.
Plot:
I had a hard time suspending my disbelief regarding the plot, even at the start. As the synopsis states, one of the professors at Cambridge has a “secret society of students known as the Maidens.” However, this secret society doesn’t seem that secret, and no one at the school seems concerned with this obviously inappropriate society. Michaelides is good at making the plot seem intriguing (everyone seems suspicious), but in general, it is completely nonsensical. The ending is especially absurd. So, the main character (Mariana)’s husband is secretly having sex with their adopted niece, and he wants to kill Mariana so he can get rich. So instead of coming up with a normal plot to kill her, he decides he is going to have the niece kill a bunch of college-age girls, frame a professor, and count on Mariana investigating and eventually getting killed???? This plan has so many variables and so many ways it would not work. What if the security cameras caught the niece killing? What if Mariana, like a normal human being, simply took Zoe out of school to get away from the murders? What if the police actually suspected the professor (as they should have) and arrested him before Mariana got too deep into the investigation? The more I think about it, the more it makes absolutely no sense.
Characters:
Michaelides is good at making characters seem suspicious and off, which made the thriller interesting for the first part of the book. However, all the characters are ultimately one-dimensional. The worst character is Mariana, the main character. She makes the absolute most terrible decisions. It’s like she wanted to die, and I was kind of disappointed she didn’t. Additionally, it was clear that Mariana was written by a man, which made her character seem ersatz. For example, she falls in love with a random young man who is creepily stalking her and harassing her. Now, this might have been fine if the book painted this as unhealthy or abnormal, but instead it’s portrayed as romantic. This is NOT romantic. This is creepy, and it only sends the message to men that they should harass and stalk women until they get what they want.
Setting:
The book mostly takes place at St. Christopher’s College, probably because it is a dark academia book. Michaelides manages to convey the beauty of the location well enough, although I never felt like I could picture it vividly.
Themes:
The Maidens is way too focused on outmoded Freudian psychological theories. There is a lot of talk about father/mother complexes, split evil/good personalities, etc. This sort of thing might fly in the 1950s, but in 2021 it really doesn’t make sense. At first I thought it would be a powerful mediation on death and grief, but that all ended when Mariana reveals that her dead beloved husband was actually ~evil~. And then the book pretty much just ends.
Writing Style:
Michaelides’s writing is fast-paced and engaging.
Conclusion:
The Maidens pulled me into the mystery, and I was hooked until the last fourth of the book when everything all fell apart. The main character is hard to root for because she makes terrible choices. For example, she agrees to meet a man she thinks is a serial killer ALONE in a NON-PUBLIC place and EATS HIS FOOD and gets mildly DRUNK. Clearly, she wants to die. . The plot is ridiculous and ruins the entire thriller.
Other Points:
· The cover is gorgeous
· The police in this book are absolutely useless. Any sensible person would suspect Edward Fosca, at least after the second murder. He has a secret, creepy cult of young women who follow him around, and two of them ended up dead. Sebastian’s plan relied heavily on the police not suspecting this, which seems like a huge oversight.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Grief, Death, Murder, Stalking, and Violence
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Abandonment, Misogyny, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Incest, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Sexual content
laurenleigh's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Eh I’m not surprised I didn’t love this. I didn’t like The Silent Patient either. But I had to give it a chance. Dark academia? Murder mystery? References to classic literature and Greek mythology? All things I absolutely love! But they still didn’t come together for me. I strongly believe good writing should “show, not tell.” My biggest block with Michaelides is just that. Like, I get it already, you studied psychology, cool. You can use that for good writing, but when you’re constantly breaking from the story to explain the psychological theory you’re assigning to this character…it’s tiresome. I want to see that theory played out in a character’s actions and motivations. I also didn’t really enjoy the plot all that much…sure, there was a twist at the end, but I felt like I saw 90% of that twist coming from a mile away. Lastly, I’m pretty tired of the “police won’t believe us, we have to find the killer ourselves!” trope. Okay just kidding I have one more gripe lol. I have a lot of feelings about Persephone, the Eleusinian Mysteries, and kykeon, and I thought their portrayals in this book were rather flat. To claim the ancient Greeks participating in these spiritual rituals were just “tripping” feels reductionist to me. I guess it was nice to have a mindless quick read after listening to hours and hours of deep Russian classic literature, but I’m very ready to move on to the next book!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Gore, Death, Grief, and Murder
Moderate: Abandonment, Animal death, Death, Self harm, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Violence, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual content
abookandaspotoftea's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Murder
Moderate: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, and Pedophilia
Minor: Animal death
wrenxavier's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, and Violence
Minor: Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Pedophilia, and Suicide attempt
wai's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
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
1.0
This book was my June 2021 BOTM pick, and while I hadn't read the author's first novel, I had seen enough praise of it and the synopsis was interesting enough for me to give it a chance. What I didn't realize is that this is one of the many instances in media in which someone who has absolutely no concept of the mental health profession trying to write the character of a therapist/psychologist. Like, this man did zero research. He has not spoken to a single therapist/psychologist, much less anyone with a mental health condition. The level of ableism and professional negligence (at BEST, misconduct at worse) is abhorrent. Here are just the most egregious moments that stood out during my reading:
- Within the first 10 pages, the main character who is a therapist, Mariana, quotes Freud. This is never a good sign, as Freudian theory has been discredited for a good long while now and modern therapists quoting him always rings false.
- Mariana has a client with a substance use disorder who is actively in crisis. It's written that it's "not her place" to advise him to go into rehab for his addiction, which apparently is only for his GP/psychiatrist to say??? Then he reveals that he has cut himself terribly to elicit sympathy from her because he is obsessively in love with her. She then gives him a first aid kit and tells him to leave, because she is not a physical doctor who can stitch up his wounds. Does England not have crisis services, or inpatient facilities????? As a therapist you literally have an obligation to ensure that someone who is clearly in a crisis gets to acute intensive services considering he is obviously showing that he is a harm to himself and others. This is within the first like 40 pages of the novel and shows that Mariana should actually have her license revoked for malpractice/negligence. Not only that, but this character later shows up (as a potential suspect - demonizing mental illness as does the whole book) after stalking Mariana and makes an attempt on his life that makes Mariana feel guilty, as she should for not doing her job during this first incident.
- She just goes around lying to everyone that she's been asked by the dean to help students process the deaths on campus, which is obviously a lie because she just asks the kind of questions you hear in a Law & Order episode which is basically the opposite of what you should be doing to try and help potentially traumatized people.
- The hot youngish American Professor of Greek Mythology has a "secret" study group of female undergrad students who are all gorgeous that he calls "The Maidens" and for some reason none of the other professors, department heads, deans, and anyone else in charge has no idea about this or the fact that he's having sex with all of them.
- The actual murderer is a character with no foreshadowing who ends up committed instead of imprisoned because this was all due to a psychotic episode despite not portraying any symptoms of a psychotic episode prior to the reveal. Plus this only furthers the concept that mentally ill people are violent, just like with the character with substance use disorder. Oh no, someone is exhibiting symptoms that are difficult and upsetting, time to look at them with suspicion and wonder when they are going to start stalking and killing people!!
- The actual murderer is supposed to be a plot twist but there is absolutely no foreshadowing at all and instead comes off as unplanned and sloppy writing. It actually makes very little sense when considering the entire novel as a whole. All other characters introduced to be suspects are left with no resolution or understanding behind their actions. It is an unconvincing and shallow ending that was only disappointing, not shocking.
There is a lot more that I could say but that is the gist of it. The only reason I finished reading it was that it was not very long and written very plainly so I was able to read it very fast...and honestly, I wanted to see just how bad it would get. I only get it 1 full star due to the fact that I did get through it all. But ultimately this is a book written by someone who wants to be way more clever than they actually are and trying very, very hard to pull off something Genius And Complex(TM). It doesn't work and you can feel the desperation of "I'm So Smart You Didn't See That Coming Huh???" in every scene. Of course we don't see it coming if you don't set it up and just make it up as you go. Please stop writing about psychology and maybe write about a topic you know something about next time.
- Within the first 10 pages, the main character who is a therapist, Mariana, quotes Freud. This is never a good sign, as Freudian theory has been discredited for a good long while now and modern therapists quoting him always rings false.
- Mariana has a client with a substance use disorder who is actively in crisis. It's written that it's "not her place" to advise him to go into rehab for his addiction, which apparently is only for his GP/psychiatrist to say??? Then he reveals that he has cut himself terribly to elicit sympathy from her because he is obsessively in love with her. She then gives him a first aid kit and tells him to leave, because she is not a physical doctor who can stitch up his wounds. Does England not have crisis services, or inpatient facilities????? As a therapist you literally have an obligation to ensure that someone who is clearly in a crisis gets to acute intensive services considering he is obviously showing that he is a harm to himself and others. This is within the first like 40 pages of the novel and shows that Mariana should actually have her license revoked for malpractice/negligence. Not only that, but this character later shows up (as a potential suspect - demonizing mental illness as does the whole book) after stalking Mariana and makes an attempt on his life that makes Mariana feel guilty, as she should for not doing her job during this first incident.
- She just goes around lying to everyone that she's been asked by the dean to help students process the deaths on campus, which is obviously a lie because she just asks the kind of questions you hear in a Law & Order episode which is basically the opposite of what you should be doing to try and help potentially traumatized people.
- The hot youngish American Professor of Greek Mythology has a "secret" study group of female undergrad students who are all gorgeous that he calls "The Maidens" and for some reason none of the other professors, department heads, deans, and anyone else in charge has no idea about this or the fact that he's having sex with all of them.
- The actual murderer is a character with no foreshadowing who ends up committed instead of imprisoned because this was all due to a psychotic episode despite not portraying any symptoms of a psychotic episode prior to the reveal. Plus this only furthers the concept that mentally ill people are violent, just like with the character with substance use disorder. Oh no, someone is exhibiting symptoms that are difficult and upsetting, time to look at them with suspicion and wonder when they are going to start stalking and killing people!!
- The actual murderer is supposed to be a plot twist but there is absolutely no foreshadowing at all and instead comes off as unplanned and sloppy writing. It actually makes very little sense when considering the entire novel as a whole. All other characters introduced to be suspects are left with no resolution or understanding behind their actions. It is an unconvincing and shallow ending that was only disappointing, not shocking.
There is a lot more that I could say but that is the gist of it. The only reason I finished reading it was that it was not very long and written very plainly so I was able to read it very fast...and honestly, I wanted to see just how bad it would get. I only get it 1 full star due to the fact that I did get through it all. But ultimately this is a book written by someone who wants to be way more clever than they actually are and trying very, very hard to pull off something Genius And Complex(TM). It doesn't work and you can feel the desperation of "I'm So Smart You Didn't See That Coming Huh???" in every scene. Of course we don't see it coming if you don't set it up and just make it up as you go. Please stop writing about psychology and maybe write about a topic you know something about next time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Stalking, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Grief
Moderate: Abandonment, Suicide attempt, Sexual assault, Animal death, Child abuse, Death of parent, Death, Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, and Emotional abuse
Minor: Infidelity, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, and Incest
inkslinger's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
'The Maidens' is the newest release from Alex Michaelides, bestselling author of the debut sensation 'The Silent Patient.' A psychological thriller housed within St. Christopher's College, Cambridge, the author binds mystery and murder to themes of classic Greek mythology.
Told primarily through the narrative of Mariana, a group psychotherapist who's a year into mourning for her late husband, the woman is drawn back to the place where their love story began by what is quite likely the only thing that could motivate her to set foot there. A call for help from her niece, Zoe, regarding her best friend's murder.
Drifting between the memories of their courtship haunting her still and the secrets stacking up around her that seem to be held tightly by both the students and faculty members, Mariana struggles to put the pieces together. Strangeness is afoot amongst a select group of students referred to as The Maidens and their darkly charismatic professor, Edward Fosca.
From the opening pages, Michaelides captures grief exquisitely, affixing it to the page with the expertise of a collector.. as if it's a butterfly pinned neatly under glass for the rest of us to study. Above all else, it's the ability to convey those emotions.. so richly textured, that inextricably bound me to this story through its end.
It certainly doesn't hurt that the author himself seems to be well-read. More than once, though I was loathe to put the book down, I found myself pausing in search of referenced writings that I'd never cared enough to read prior. His romantic description behind Tennyson's grief drove me to read the 3,000 line masterpiece, 'In Memoriam.' I researched theses for Antigone, dissertations on Euripides, and though Aristotle is one of my favorites.. this book had me viewing 'The Poetics' through a different lens entirely.
Periodically, snippets of another narrative appear throughout the book. Snippets of what could be diary entries from an individual who has known great suffering and may in fact be inflicting the same on others. Interestingly enough, there are so many choices presented by the author, that it's difficult to even stick with a guess as to who it might be.
Eloquently penned, the story moves at a steady pace, weaving.. labyrinthine through the lives affected by the murder. Those ripples reaching in some cases much farther than we might anticipate, creating more difficult situations on top of the first.
Though Michaelides did keep me guessing to the end, my only complaint is that I felt almost cheated. I felt robbed of the moment where I might look back and say to myself, "I should have seen that," because it wasn't there. It wasn't just subterfuge and misdirection, it was a blank canvas. I like to call it the 'Saw' treatment.. and never have I been so infuriated by a film.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the book. In a lesser writer's hands that feeling would have won out, but it's just so beautifully crafted and so emotionally driven.. that I forgive him for taking a path that just personally displeases me. I'm truly grateful for having read this story, I haven't been so immersed in a long time.
If you like tense thrillers with a psychological bent and an elegant, artistic approach.. this is the book for you.
(I received this title as an ARC. All opinions are mine and freely given.)
Told primarily through the narrative of Mariana, a group psychotherapist who's a year into mourning for her late husband, the woman is drawn back to the place where their love story began by what is quite likely the only thing that could motivate her to set foot there. A call for help from her niece, Zoe, regarding her best friend's murder.
Drifting between the memories of their courtship haunting her still and the secrets stacking up around her that seem to be held tightly by both the students and faculty members, Mariana struggles to put the pieces together. Strangeness is afoot amongst a select group of students referred to as The Maidens and their darkly charismatic professor, Edward Fosca.
From the opening pages, Michaelides captures grief exquisitely, affixing it to the page with the expertise of a collector.. as if it's a butterfly pinned neatly under glass for the rest of us to study. Above all else, it's the ability to convey those emotions.. so richly textured, that inextricably bound me to this story through its end.
It certainly doesn't hurt that the author himself seems to be well-read. More than once, though I was loathe to put the book down, I found myself pausing in search of referenced writings that I'd never cared enough to read prior. His romantic description behind Tennyson's grief drove me to read the 3,000 line masterpiece, 'In Memoriam.' I researched theses for Antigone, dissertations on Euripides, and though Aristotle is one of my favorites.. this book had me viewing 'The Poetics' through a different lens entirely.
Periodically, snippets of another narrative appear throughout the book. Snippets of what could be diary entries from an individual who has known great suffering and may in fact be inflicting the same on others. Interestingly enough, there are so many choices presented by the author, that it's difficult to even stick with a guess as to who it might be.
Eloquently penned, the story moves at a steady pace, weaving.. labyrinthine through the lives affected by the murder. Those ripples reaching in some cases much farther than we might anticipate, creating more difficult situations on top of the first.
Though Michaelides did keep me guessing to the end, my only complaint is that I felt almost cheated. I felt robbed of the moment where I might look back and say to myself, "I should have seen that," because it wasn't there. It wasn't just subterfuge and misdirection, it was a blank canvas. I like to call it the 'Saw' treatment.. and never have I been so infuriated by a film.
Don't get me wrong, I loved the book. In a lesser writer's hands that feeling would have won out, but it's just so beautifully crafted and so emotionally driven.. that I forgive him for taking a path that just personally displeases me. I'm truly grateful for having read this story, I haven't been so immersed in a long time.
If you like tense thrillers with a psychological bent and an elegant, artistic approach.. this is the book for you.
(I received this title as an ARC. All opinions are mine and freely given.)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Minor: Abandonment, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, and Blood
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