“Reading about life was no preparation for living it.”
Last year we reviewed Alex Michaelides’ bestselling debut novel The Silent Patient, and lauded it as one of the best books we’ve read. Another one of the best books we’ve read is Benjamin Wood’s The Bellwether Revivals, a dark academia mystery set within the hallowed halls of Cambridge. So, when we got our hands on Michaelides’ follow-up, The Maidens, a psychological thriller set within King’s College, all the signs pointed to this being an absolute winner. But, how did this Greek mythology-themed whodunnit stack up against our expectations? Join us today at What We Reading for our book review for The Maidens!
Date Published: 2021
Author: Alex Michaelides
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 337
Goodreads Rating: 3.63/5
Premise
The Maidens follows Mariana, a Greek-born group therapist living in London who is still mourning the death of her husband, Sebastian. One evening, she receives a call from her adoptive niece, Zoe, who tells her that her best friend, Tara, has disappeared. When Tara’s body is discovered having been brutally murdered, Mariana rushes up to Cambridge to be with Zoe.
Zoe explains to Mariana that Tara had been a member of a secret student group known as The Maidens, and romantically involved with its leader, the charismatic professor of Greek tragedy, Edward Fosca.
Drawn back into the university’s ancient traditions and nostalgia from when she was once a student, Mariana soon finds herself ensnared in a web of secrets, lies and jealousy on the hunt for a serial killer.
What Worked
First off, Alex Michaelides is a wonderful writer. There’s a magnetism about his delivery, his metaphors and descriptions that make his stories so intensely readable, and these are all firmly put on display with The Maidens’ Cambridge academic decadence and glamour. Michaelides’ themes of Greek tragedy pair extremely well with the setting, and the pacing was balanced enough to make this a thoroughly absorbing whodunnit.
Maybe we’re just suckers for English dark academia as a genre, but the themes, delivery and backdrop managed to keep us gripped throughout. The Maidens was a book we devoured in rapid time and the concoction of all of these features made this feel like a mystery thriller with some real weight behind it.
We also got several call-backs and interactions to The Silent Patient through Ruth, Theo and Alicia, which was fun. It’s not often psychological standalone thrillers do this sort of thing, but it opens the door for a real ‘Silent Patient universe’, which we would be all for.
What Didn’t
As a main character, Mariana works for the most part; however, several things hold her back from being one many readers are going to resonate with or root for. For starters, how she finds herself bedded and boarded running around Cambridge University on a one-man mission to unmask a killer is not only dubious but actively damaging to the ongoing police investigation. She’s also a female protagonist who every man she interacts with throws themselves to the floor for, which is jarring when stacked against her status as a grieving widow.
Several other characters pop up now and again, seemingly just to remind the reader that they exist. They only really exist to be red herrings and potential suspects readers are encouraged to keep in their minds.
On that, the final reveal of the killer came totally out of left field. Any long-term visitors at What We Reading will know we embrace being hopeless at guessing twists; but, we like reveals that have at least some chance of being guessed, which certainly wasn’t the case here. Reveals like the one in The Maidens lose a lot of their shock value when it feels like the author has done all they can to ensure it isn’t guessable whatsoever.
Verdict
We try to judge every book on its own merits. Comparisons to other works by an author are natural, but we try not to let it cloud our judgment too much when assessing a story. But, as the immediate follow-up to such an acclaimed bestseller, we can’t help but stack The Maidens up against The Silent Patient.
And in this contest, it comes up short by a fair margin.
That isn’t because The Maidens is a bad book, at least in our opinion, it’s just The Silent Patient was so fantastic any follow-up was likely going to struggle to stack up.
The Maidens suffers from several issues that prevent being on the same level as The Silent Patient. A few subplots don’t go anywhere and could be removed, Mariana makes some questionable decisions, and the final reveal certainly leaves plenty to be desired compared to Michaelides’ previous work.
Nevertheless, this was a book we genuinely really liked. If you’re a fan of Alex Michaelides, it is well worth a shot. The poetry and Greek mythology lend themselves extremely well to the academic elitist environment and the tie-ins to its precursor serve as a fun reward.
All in all, looking forward to picking up more of Michaelides’ books in the future.
Our Rating: 4/5
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Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
