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The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1)

Nita Prose

Start date: November 7, 2022

Finish date: December 7, 2022

Discussion: Buddy Reads 2022

Why we're reading this: November Buddy Read
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Buddy Reads 2022

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What Members Thought

May 22, 2023 Erika rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Very enjoyable read. I really liked the characters but i was not completely impressed with the ending. I saw some things coming from the beginning and the final plot twist didn’t shock me. Still a very easy read and I can’t resist a good found family trope!

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Dec 31, 2023 Jane Hartsock rated it liked it

Maybe it's just because there's so much talk around this book and my expectations were simply too high... it might also be because I'm a lawyer so there were several occasions on which I was just like, "Yeahno. That would never happen." But this book didn't click for me.

SPOILERS

There were some things that I really, really liked about this novel -- I think there's something really important about the fact that what builds tension here is not actually a desire to find out who killed Mr. Black. Ho Maybe it's just because there's so much talk around this book and my expectations were simply too high... it might also be because I'm a lawyer so there were several occasions on which I was just like, "Yeahno. That would never happen." But this book didn't click for me.

SPOILERS

There were some things that I really, really liked about this novel -- I think there's something really important about the fact that what builds tension here is not actually a desire to find out who killed Mr. Black. Honestly, who gives a shit who killed him; good riddance. The tension in the book is the reader's concern and worry for Molly as you sense her getting pulled into an incredibly dangerous world that she cannot possibly understand. So the tension in the book is the readers empathy for Molly. That's an unusual way to write a novel for sure.

There's also something very interesting going on here to the extent that you can tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys are based simply on their capacity toward kindness of this "different" protagonist. Yeah, I like that. That's something I haven't seen before in a novel. And that strategy kept me invested in the novel for probably 3/4 of it.

However, the way it ultimately wraps up was unsatisfying to me. The court room drama is not really all that dramatic (or all that believable--it probably would have been a mistrial). That Mrs. Black was the murderer seems fairly obvious and something that the police would have investigated more thoroughly and probably discovered (seriously, not a single fucking recording of the reception area, the elevators, or the hallways was reviewed by Detective Stark). And the final reveal really is that Molly helped Mrs. Black get away with murder and I don't know... that sullies Molly for me.

There were some little things that were distracting for me, too. Juan's dialect switches from sort of a lower SES dialect/grammar, to a stilted English-as-a-second-language cadence/grammar. Wilbur is never chased down and dealt with and I would have added a whole additional star to this if that son of a bitch had gotten his comeuppance. I never got a sense of where this story takes place. It has a very British feel to it, but the descriptions of places feels American. So, that contributed to an overall confusing reading experience.

Overall it just didn't work for me. ...more

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