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Book Review: "The Maidens" by Alex Michaelides

3.5/5 - Drama, tension and yet, predictability

By Annie KapurPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Books with twists that you never expect are some of the most exciting books to read. For example: we have the novels of Agatha Christie, the books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and down the line we get this resurgence of thrillers that we are witnessing in our own day. In the last few years I have read my fair share of great thriller novels and most of them have been absolutely amazing. Recently, I did finish the new and best-selling “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides which is about a woman in a mental facility who will not talk. A doctor takes his chances to get her to open up but written in the first person from the doctor’s perspective, this book is nothing like you would expect. The twist is something far more horrific than you think it is. After reading this, I thought it would be a great idea to wait for the next thing from this author to float my way and thus, here we have “The Maidens”. I was super-excited to read this and then I opened the book and made my way inside its dark and blood-splattered pages. Flashlight in hand, it was not what I expected at all.

The book’s main character is a Greek woman who runs a therapy group. One man in the therapy group seems to stalk her and is fairly disturbing when you really come to think about it. As the book progresses, we learn about her husband who unfortunately passed away and a woman who is her friend who consoles her through the difficulties of remembering that day. There are a number of holes I found when I was reading the book and yet, I could not get out of my head that I had sort of predicted what was going to happen at the end of the book by just before the midpoint. You see, these murders of women start occurring and me, being me with my folkish brain, did not really think to myself ‘oh this could be something by a man taking his revenge on women because of his involuntary celibacy…’ it was far too easy. The question was not really ‘who’ but more ‘why’. That is when I practically guessed the ending to the book and so, the twist was not really there. I can say though that at the beginning of the book, there is no requirement to even think anything too deeply about the society and culture in which the main character lives as, for women, it is a common occurrence to get unwanted attention from the worst types of men. But you must force yourself to look deeper. Only then will you find out where the answers are.

The book is well written, I will say that. Even though the twist is halfway predictable, the book has a number of good writings in it. The dialogue is not too long, the descriptions are nice and deep and there are parts where the characters get philosophical and it does not feel like you’re dragging yourself along the storyline. I will not say what the twist or the ending is because not only do I want you to read carefully to find out for yourself, but I want to see whether you can see it through all of the hints that go on in the first part of the book. It has just enough dramatic scenes in it to make it tense but not over the top and each character is explored in a good amount of depth. Again though, the twist becomes more predictable the more attention your pay to the book.

literature
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About the Creator

Annie Kapur

190K+ Reads on Vocal.

English Lecturer

🎓Literature & Writing (B.A)

🎓Film & Writing (M.A)

🎓Secondary English Education (PgDipEd)

📍Birmingham, UK

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