Worth the Hype? – The Housemaid Review 

Synopsis

Desperate and out of options, Millie takes a job as a live-in housemaid for the wealthy Winchester family. She’s grateful for the chance, even if the Winchesters’ beautiful home feels a little strange and Mrs. Winchester acts increasingly unstable. As Millie settles in, she realises the family has chilling secrets, and her dream job turns into a nightmare. But Millie has secrets of her own… and in this house, not everything is as it seems.

Highlights

The best thing about The Housemaid is the pacing. It isn’t boring, nor does it slow down at any point; the plot progresses at a steady pace and keeps you engaged the whole time. I finished the book in a few hours and read right through it without putting it down once. In this regard, I give it 5 stars. It was engaging and swift. The writing style wasn’t difficult or overly advanced, very easy to read and follow. I didn’t find much literary depth here, but not every book needs to be high-level prose, and I’m okay with that.

I quite enjoyed the reveals. I wouldn’t say they were predictable. I don’t have much of a thriller-oriented mind, so I didn’t see them coming, but I also wasn’t completely shocked when they happened. It felt more like, “Ah, yes, I could’ve guessed that… if I’d been guessing.” The husband being the villain wasn’t what shocked me the most; the reveal at the end and how we discovered that he got that mindset from his abusive mother, now that was well done. 

“If you don’t take care of your teeth,” she continues, “then you lose the privilege to have teeth…..When I pulled out one of his baby teeth with pliers, I thought he understood.”

Page 346

Wheew, so sinister!

I also tend to enjoy stories where I’m not necessarily rooting for the main character, and in this case, I found Millie pretty insufferable. When she suddenly started “falling in love” with her boss, I just thought, Ugh, really? It felt lazy and unoriginal.

I really liked Nina, not because she was particularly remarkable, but because the story finally picked up for me when it shifted to her point of view. Getting insight into her history and motivations added much-needed depth. What she went through was genuinely wild, and honestly, I was surprised she came out of it even partially sane. Was it fair for her to choose Millie to essentially take her place? Probably not. But when you’re backed into a corner, sometimes you just do what you have to do. I was rooting for her and was fascinated by her thought processes. Even before learning her backstory, I found the way she treated Millie so funny. It was obvious she was unhinged, but the way her “forgetfulness” was portrayed made it comically absurd.

Critiques

Like I mentioned earlier, I wouldn’t call the twists predictable, but they didn’t shock me enough to leave a lasting impact. I was never truly caught off guard,  there wasn’t a moment when my heart raced or I felt genuinely stressed by the story. For a thriller, I can’t say I was particularly thrilled. The so-called twists felt more like reveals; we were learning new information about the characters rather than having our understanding of the story flipped on its head.

Take Millie, for example: we know so little about her that discovering she’s a murderer didn’t hit hard. It was more like, “Oh… okay, I guess?” Her narration gave no real hint that she was anything more than poor and a bit naïve. That said, I still enjoyed the book by general standards, the storyline kept me engaged, and finding out Andrew Winchester was a total creep was definitely satisfying.

Again, do not expect this to be a literary masterpiece. You will not be mentally stimulated in any way, which is fine, but the writing style, while simple, was almost forceful. From the beginning, McFadden drops these ‘clues’ to insinuate things are not as they seem. There’s almost no buildup of suspense, it’s all thrown at us from the start in a way that feels extremely heavy-handed. Even early descriptions, like when she first sees her freakishly small room (which itself feels a bit overdone), are exaggerated to the point of losing subtlety. She says…

“There was something about that room that was very scary.” 

Like, come on, Freida….at least try a bit harder than that. There are ways to convey being unsettled without directly saying it.

Another example is when Millie meets the gardener and she says…

“There’s something in his expression that sends a chill down my spine. And then he shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. Almost like he’s trying to warn me.” 

He tells her the situation is dangerous ( or at least tries to), and I’m like, sure, why would the gardener tell a random woman she’s in danger living in this rich suburban home as the maid?  What could possibly go wrong? *heavy sarcasm*

Can we all be so for real??? At times, this book gave off major Wattpad vibes! The writing feels so juvenile that it detracts from the overall quality of the plot. And don’t even get me started on Millie’s daily musings,  it honestly felt like I was inside the head of a teenager daydreaming about her favourite celebrity in a fanfic. But then again, Millie did spend 10 years in prison, so maybe that was intentional… who knows.

Then again, even the prison storyline and her appearing largely unaffected, paired with a rushed backstory to justify her being a murderer, felt like a waste of words and writing. It was awkwardly tacked on at the end to make the “evil mastermind” switcheroo seem plausible, but honestly, it just didn’t land for me.

Final Verdict

in the Housemaid, the “mystery” is kinda obvious. There wasn’t really any suspense, it was simply a story unfolding. From Part II onward, I was speed reading and curious to see how it ended. However, I was invested in the whole revenge vibe like ok girl, get your freedom! Overall, I did like how it ended, obvious or not.

So, is The Housemaid by Freida Mcfadden worth the hype? Well… yes and no. I’d say it’s a solid entry-level thriller — fast-paced, gripping, and, on the surface, it delivers what it promises. That said, will I be continuing with the rest of the series? Honestly, probably not.

I have now read quite a few thrillers that I have enjoyed. I am always looking to read some more so please give me recs in the comments or my contacts.

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