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A review by mayastone
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
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.
- 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.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Adult/minor relationship