Reviews tagging 'Rape'

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

66 reviews

abbiewinters97's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0


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kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I found this book difficult to put down, even though it is outside of my typical genre. Well-written, with loads of twists and turns, my brain kept flipping back and forth on who I thought the killer was. While I did think the person who was the killer could’ve been a suspect, the reason they ended up being a killer was shocking. This book is a quick read, with short chapters, and a great twist! 

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gatesbetch's review against another edition

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dark 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? Yes

3.0


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booksconcafe's review against another edition

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I can’t. I just hate the main character and could not stand being stuck in her thoughts. 

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mariacalvo's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0


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jasminewright's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

NO BECAUSE THIS WAS SO EFFING CRAZY. This year, I have been on a really big kick of contemporary retellings of Greek Mythology. I must say, I wasn't quite expecting the books to be this dark and twisted but I was totally into it. I don't normally re-read books, but I would read this again just to pick up on some things that I missed before. The twist was absolutely shocking. I mean, I was totally shook. The writing was great and entertaining from beginning to end. The short chapters are a favorite of mine. I will say, check the trigger warnings before reading this book because there are a lot of dark things that occur. 

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readbybess's review against another edition

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mayastone's review against another edition

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

0.25

 
  - So many family issues. Almost everyone comes from a broken family or is an orphan.
- The crime, the victims come from wealthy/powerful families yet the investigation seems trivial and simplistic. That's not realistic, especially when you factor in Mariana stomping around unchecked.
- Mariana makes no sense. Everyone wants her, two men kiss her without permission, yet "she's ugly." She was allowed to interfere in an ongoing murder investigation with one person actively helping her get involved. From the get go, she was obsessed with Fosca and that obsession was never fully addressed. The rage scene where she physically assaulted him, wtf? Afterwards she was interviewed before being asked to leave, and then nothing else came of it...??
- Sebastian is painted as the perfect husband and is a heavy ghost looming over everything. Then the twist came and I didn't like it. So all this time "Mr. Perfect" was abusing Zoe and had an elaborate plan to kill Mariana and Mariana didn't notice anything? This man with sever issues, judging by his parts in the story, and a trained psychotherapist didn't clue in to anything?? And that's supposed to be accepted because she has daddy issues??
- Theo showing up was annoying, I especially hated how this book decided that Mariana was partially responsible for Theo finding the girl in the silent patient.
- Fred, of course he just falls in love with Mariana for no reason and he has premonitions (again, wtf??).
- Henry, was all that necessary. Really, we needed to read about a patient that Mariana couldn't maintain a professional relationship with, mutilating himself in front of her and stalking her?? What was the point of all that, and of course he too is male.
- Fosca, how the hell did he get away with keeping a private group of students hanging around him unchecked. In the secret history it's highlighted that the school is a special school and the group is mixed gendered. This seems like a regular university so how did that fly??
- The Maidens, they didn't have any real purpose here. Okay Zoe and Seb targeted them to lure Mariana to her death, and they are all rich and come from powerful families, but that's it.
- I was eagerly waiting for the story to end. Despite being an audiobook, at 2x the speed, I was still bored. I genuinely wished I could make the book go by faster.

The author gets a solid 1 star for the following:
- Writing 2 terrible books and gaining acclaim. I cannot imagine how many unknown authors are out there, writing good books, only for this dude to get praised for writing trash, twice.
- The cover. If I can find this for about $1 (or less) I'd buy it just for the cover. Wouldn't pay more than that though.
- Adding a book to my TBR plus I liked the quote on the postcards. I especially enjoyed the narrator reading the quotes in Greek first.
- This is the Stephanie Meyer and whoever wrote "50 shades of Grey" of this time. Good for the author.  
 
 

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vivmorris's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No

3.0


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elenamarmiroli's review against another edition

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mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

0.75

Ho letto questo libro come buddy read e se inizialmente dissentivo dall'opinione negativa generale che gli altri ne avevano, in parte probabilmente perché non ho letto molti libri di questo genere, più andavo avanti nella sua lettura più ho dovuto concordare con loro.

Se infatti lo stile di scrittura, il parlare delle cose senza mostrarle e la natura quasi maniacale con cui la protagonista si fissa
sul suo sospetto
non mi hanno particolarmente disturbato, sono stati compensate da
baci
a caso che la protagonista riceve senza consenso, cosi come
ben due proposte di matrimonio out of the blue da parte del medesimo personaggio <7spoiler> e un finale con un colpo di scena completamente insensato. 
A mio parere infatti, esso è basato sull'erronea concezione che la protagonista avrebbe agito
nella maniera in cui ha agito nel corso dell'opera, anche senza che lei avesse in precedenza perso il marito, proprio collegando psicologicamente questo lutto con la parte di mitologia greca che viene ripresa anche per gli omicidi
.

Inoltre, qual è il senso di avere un suo cliente che la stalkera all'interno dell'opera? Cosa aggiunge? E se proprio ci doveva essere, possiamo condannare maggiormente questa sua tendenza e non minimizzarla?

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