The Housemaid by Freida McFadden | Thriller Fiction Review

A fun popcorn read despite my many complaints.

My 2 Cents for Free!

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

Released April 2022

Source: Library Borrow

See more @ Goodreads

I think the entirety of Goodreads has read this before me but my turn with the audio finally came in from the library and I dropped everything else to give it a listen and I have no regrets. These books are always fun and often they are so very silly and that’s exactly why I keep reading them! I never pick one up expecting some literary treasure for the times or a story where every plot hole is secured up nice and tight. I always pick one up when I need something to clear my head and they always do that.

Millie is a down on her luck young woman living out of her car after being released from a ten-year prison stint. She’s having trouble securing a decent job but finally has a little luck when a wealthy family with a creepy looking Children of the Damned daughter offers her a job as their live-in housemaid and gives her a room in the attic with a cot and a scratched-up door that locks from the outside. But the husband is hot and the wife seems nice, so she goes with the flow. Going with the flow means she downplays her looks so as not to tempt the husband and piss off wife Nina. She soon discovers that you don’t want to piss off Nina or their bratty daughter. Almost immediately the gaslighting begins.

As is the case with all of these books, it takes some wild turns but now that I’m thinking things over, I’m a bit disappointed that the kid wasn’t creepy AT ALL. She was just spoiled and growing up to be a terrible person. Such a wasted opportunity. Oh well, the book is messed up enough without adding that too, I suppose. Anyhow, stuff and things happen.

There are a few things here that don’t make any kind of sense, but the main one was the gardener with the language barrier. That whole thing bewilders me the more I think about it but to say more would be to ruin things for the one person left who hasn’t read this book yet. These people are terrible but that’s why these books are fun. Even Millie. She has such assholish thoughts about Nina from the very beginning. Here’s one little choice nugget:

“When she throws back her head and laughs her double chin wobbles.”

She thinks this right after Nina gives her a giant bag of beautiful clothes and seems to have nothing but unkind thoughts when it comes to Nina’s looks. Just ick. So unnecessary and gross.

Anyhow, the “laundry machine” makes an appearance here again and there is talk of a character wanting to go out and make “grass angels” on the lawn (instead of snow angels?) which are weird little things that always stick out to me in these books. Do you all make grass angels in areas without snow? Is this a real thing? If so, I apologize for bringing it up again. I even googled it this time and I got nowhere. Also, if you say “laundry machine” instead of "washing machine” I also apologize.

I’m going to give this one a 3 because it hooked me in and didn’t let go but I sometimes didn’t love the narration. The narrator channels Cyndi Lauper for Millie’s voice and it fades in and out while everyone else has a lovely, normal sounding voice. "Skeletal” is pronounced as “skeleetle” (like a beetle) and I laughed and laughed and rewound and laughed some more. I still don’t know why this struck me as funny and I think they pronounce it this way in other countries, but these characters were based in NY. It just added another layer of strangeness to a wild story, but I was grateful for the laugh. Being from the Boston area, I pronounce a lot of things strangely when I get mad, so I guess I'm not one to talk.

Despite my many petty complaints, it IS a fun way to spend a few hours with a group of people doing questionable and terrible things. The ending is shamelessly ridiculous, but the world is a ridiculous place right now so it could happen, lol.

Final Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Publisher Plot Synopsis 

“Welcome to the family,” Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I’ll soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own…

Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of…

An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down!