Would I Recommend It?
If you’re reading Alex Michaelides for the first time, then NO! Read The Silent Patient, instead, first. And then read this one. 
If you’ve read The Silent Patient and liked Alex’s writing and are determined to read his books, then yes, just prepare yourself that this one won’t be as good.

Thoughts?
Can something be flat and choppy at the same time?

It was so hard to turn the pages and read page after page the underdeveloped sentences. No feeling in them. They seemed to be just words upon words. I kept waiting for that fantastical writing that grabbed me and sucked me in right from the start in The Silent Patient. 

I didn’t at all hate the book, nor the story. I was just simply sad and disappointed that it wasn’t as good as Alex’s first book. It’s gotta be so hard to have a hit debut and to then have the expectation from fans to follow it up with a book equally good. I’d certainly would not want to have the pressure to live up to such high expectations.

If my memory was super good and remembered minor character names in stories I’ve read then I think my beginning guess at who the killer is would have been solidified early on as this book somewhat ties into The Silent Patient. I didn’t feel as much in suspense (or hardly at all) reading The Maidens as I had The Silent Patient. Alex wasn’t able to pull me in this time around and have me be intrigued by the story, the characters, nor the mystery.

In writing this review I decided to re-read The Prologue and the first chapter. There are definitely clues given from the very beginning. Not ones I picked up on when I first read them, but perhaps they stayed unconsciously in my mind. I definitely think that work was put in to make this a good mystery book, but the writing was sadly not as good as his first book. Definitely not as psychologically thrilling. Perhaps, being a male author, trying to tell an entire story from a female’s point is not the best fit for Alex.

I am going to look forward to reading his next book and see where Alex’s writing continues to go. I’m certainly not giving up on him. I just think he needs to tap back into the feeling the words in The Silent Patient created versus the lack of them in The Maidens. 

I continued to enjoy the psychology aspects of his book and there was one scene/paragraph that applies so well to someone I know closely. 

Quotable Quotes:
“Reading about life was no preparation for living it.” – page 79

The man Ruth heard described sounded authoritarian, cold, emotionally unavailable, often critical and highly unkind–even cruel. None of these qualities had anything to do with love.
“Love isn’t conditional,” Ruth said. “It’s not dependent on jumping through hoops to please someone–and always failing. You can’t love someone if you’re afraid of them, Mariana. I know it’s hard to hear. It’s a kind of blindness–but unless you wake up and see clearly, it will persist throughout your whole life, affecting how you see yourself, and others too.” – page 243

Book:

The Maidens

Author:

Alex Michaelides

Genre:

Fiction, Mystery

My Rating:

3 Stars