The Maidens

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I loved how Michaelides wove together all of the different aspects of this story. I thought it was wonderfully-crafted and it absolutely kept me engaged throughout. I had to remind myself to come up for air! Those troubling aspects aside, from a fundamental development level, the plot never felt fully fleshed out and the characters felt like caricatures. The characters were monstrously overworked yet somehow super forgettable. I had trouble remembering each male character and often forget about them until Mariana ran into them and they gave her creepy serial killer vibes all over again. Seemingly every man introduced seemed to scream I AM A CREEP, SUSPECT ME. They all make her uncomfortable, they're all trying too hard to be close to her, several actually STALK her (which we never discuss???), and yet somehow we're to believe Mariana has got this all handled and has no concerns over all the suspicious men circling her. Honestly, the ploy to make them all red herrings was so obvious it was cringey. Zoe never really felt like her own character, rather it felt like her purpose was just to be a convenient person for Mariana to walk around campus with and sometimes talk to instead of trying to 'solve' the crime through her own rambling internal monologues. Mariana Andros is a dedicated Group Therapist who knows first-hand how difficult recovering from trauma can be. Therefore, she exhibits a great deal of empathy towards her many clients.

Again, Mariana is a trained psychotherapist, the book uses psychology abundantly when it's convenient but absolutely no time is spent treating this trauma and topic with due care and respect. There is no discussion for treatment and recovery, victims, or even the behaviors that might enable this - grooming, exploitation of grief over Zoe's parent's loss, manipulation, narcissism, an abuser's perceived god complex, power hunger, and inadequacy issues, etc. None of that is explored with Sebastian, the abuser, and we're left uncertain about Zoe's mental health and future. I say this again because it merits repeating, it is clear that Michaelides struggled to write from a female character's perspective and he did a poor job of it. This is not authentic to any female perspective I have ever read or would have and simply fails to do justice to the harrowing pain and experience suffered by both Zoe and Mariana. A book which screams ‘make me into a TV series’… his writing, especially his characterisation, possesses a unique sparkle and more promise than most other writers.’ DAILY MAIL it's a power move out of a gothic melodrama, complete with the wilting female victim, and whistling? really? that whole scene is so...silly.

and ____ (proper noun) didn't recognize ANYTHING from ____'s (proper noun) life in that ___ (noun)? presumably, before ____ (proper noun) went all ______ (disparaging slang), they'd ______ (verb, past tense) about their _____ (noun, plural)?? no? In her sessions, she always kept out of the group’s way as much as possible. She only intervened when communication broke down, or when it might be helpful to make an interpretation, or when something went wrong. Mariana was still in love with him—that was the problem. Even though she knew she’d never see Sebastian again—even though he was gone for good—she was still in love and didn’t know what to do with all this love of hers. There was so much of it, and it was so messy: leaking, spilling, tumbling out of her, like stuffing falling out of an old rag doll that was coming apart at the seams.

I found The Maidens to be an inverse of The Silent Patient. With The Silent Patient, I thought the ending was fantastic, but the writing and narrative arcs left something to be desired. With the Maidens, I thought the writing and overall story arcs were much more solid, but the ending was just okay. A deliciously dark, elegant, utterly compulsive read —with a twist that blew my mind. I loved this even more than I loved The Silent Patient and that's saying something!" If only she could box up her love, as she was attempting to do with his possessions. What a pitiful sight it was—a man’s life reduced to a collection of unwanted items for a jumble sale.i am determined to dislike them both because of how poorly they are written. that dialogue—yeesh. it's contrived and melodramatic and just bad. "Do you think you can see inside my soul?" really, michaelides? and then the old tonal switcheroo from melodrama to etymological mansplaining her profession to her? you can practically see the red-pen arrow promising "authentic dialogue TK." If you’re not someone who typically reads mystery-thriller genre novels, you might want to skip this. It’s very much a genre novel (as opposed to literary fiction with a mystery twist).