The Maidens
Alex Michaelides
Overall: 3/5
Plot and themes: 3/5
Characters: 1/5
Writing style: 3/5
Attention-grabbing: 3/5
The Maidens is a dark-academia book that people have kind of thrown into the same category as The Secret History. Mariana is a group therapist and at this point in her life she has lost most of her family, but she still has her niece whom she has spoiled for most of her life. When one of her niece's friends is murdered, Mariana decides that she needs to step in to help locate the killer.
I like to read protagonists who are capable. Mariana was very far from it. She was definitely the most annoying element of the book because it was like the author didn't want to give her anything to be good at. It was a constant merry-go-round of pity and self-doubt that is not very conducive to solving a murder. The murderer seemed pretty clear to me from the start (though with a twist that surprised me so it does get points for that) but the author tried to throw us off by giving us random plot-lines to follow. I know that's how mysteries are often written, but there should be some closure or some reasoning as to why it was done that way and this book really lacked that.
As a mystery, it was fine. As dark academia, it was okay though there wasn't really much academia happening. For the characters it would be a hard pass for me because their general arcs were completely straight forward from the beginning. It's an easy read and it has it's moments but it's not something that's going to ever make my favorites.
No comments:
Post a Comment