A review by luckykosmos
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.75

This was.... a mess. The pieces were all so interesting and went nowhere. This is going to be the most pretentious I've ever sounded, but the writing unironically read like all parodies of highbrow MFA lit I've read. The characters were two-dimensional so as to be inverted. So many chapters were literally so short, maybe a page or shorter, that the prose was unbearably choppy. Mental illness was used for boring tension. The plot twist came out of nowhere and contributed not at all to the story. Before this, I wanted to check out The Silent Patient, but now I'm less sure. 

Just no. 

ADDENDUM: I forgot my massive pet peeve of dialogue in non-romanized script. Zero issue with it being in prose, but if it's dialogue, I want to know what it sounds like!! 
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