Review by andykarnik - The Maid

andykarnik 's review for:

The Maid by Nita Prose

1.0

emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I wish I had done any research before picking this one up.

From the blurb alone, it's clear Molly's "quirky ineptitude at pick up social cues" is meant to infer autism, but wow is it poorly handled. (Also notice that the author will never admit that the character has autism, just that she is based on neurodivergent children she used to teach.) Major spoilers to illustrate my point:

Molly is savvy enough to think of a way to dispose of a murder weapon mere moments after fainting from the shock of the killer being in the room, and yet so naive that's she's vacuuming up mystery white dust for months without ever wondering what it is or if anything about that situation is off?

Honestly it's the constant naivete that most drove me crazy. Though the black-and-white thinking about rules that is suddenly VERY grey was another annoying inconsistency.

There are also 3 big reveals towards the conclusion. One felt very unnecessary

(the implication that Mr. Preston is her grandfather)

and further enforced the idea that no one would like Molly on a personal level unless there was a significant reason to do so. One was a decently powerful moment, but felt like it didn't belong in the same story as the rest of it

the fact that Molly killed her grandmother

. And the final one was ... odd. It made me feel like the whole story was disingenuous with the reader.

Our protagonist knew who the killer was all along and never even THOUGHT about it? The reader is left with a murder mystery where the murderer is... not really one of the characters.

Content Warnings