The Housemaid’s Secret by Freida McFadden
Rating: 3.5/5
Spice: 0
Primary Genre: Thriller
Trigger Warnings: Sizeism and body-shaming, Classism, Attempted rape, Infidelity (on-page), Discussions of domestic abuse and violence, Disordered eating & food thoughts including calorie counting and food shaming, Suicidal ideation, Alcohol consumption, Infertility mentioned, Blood depiction, Emesis, Death of a mother from a stroke mentioned, Murder by gun & knife violence, Physical assault, Stalking, Incarceration for physical assault mentioned, Poverty & financial difficulties discussed
Favorite Quote: “You hiding drugs up there?” “No! Definitely not!” I just murdered somebody, that’s all. Sheesh.
Plot 3/5: Millie is back, still doing her whole maid vigilante thing. And still trying to work around that prison record. She’s trying to work her way through college now. She gets a job working for the very wealthy Mr. and Mrs. Garrick and while it pays well, the vibes are very off. Mrs. Garrick never leaves her room and Mr. Garrick goes from being nice to…rude and strange. And of course, Millie can’t help but get involved. Is it different from The Housemaid? Yes. Is it different enough? Meh.
The Good:
* I loved to see the return on Enzo in book 2 and his character is a welcome reprieve from the hamster running on the wheel in Millie’s brain 24/7.
* As much as I can’t stand Wendy’s character, she was a necessary addition to keep this book interesting. As a new character, I thought that she was written well and with depth.
* I liked to see McFadden integrate the police presence into this book a bit more, it was pretty much non-existent in the last book and it brought a new element into the storyline that wasn’t there in the last book.
* While the story in this book felt a little slow and predictable compared to the first, I still didn’t see the twist at the end coming. McFadden gets me every time!
The Meh:
* Millie’s character doesn’t seem to have evolved much from the first book, she’s still doing all of her same Millie things. Most of her problems are the same and she doesn’t seem to be doing a whole lot to improve them.
* I understand that this is essentially “The Housemaid 2” but it didn’t feel very original to me.
* I was a little bored at times
Bottom Line:
Was it realistically going to compare to The Housemaid? Probably not. That book just kind of killed it and left us all sitting with our jaws hanging open and thinking wtf did I just read. Still, it wasn’t a total dud for me. I enjoyed the ending and I’ll obviously be reading the next book in the series…I mean why not? I’ve already come this far, I might as well see how this all plays out.
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