The Housemaid Book Review

Freida McFadden has been a popular psychological thriller author for the last 5 years. She’s best known for “The Housemaid” series. Given that a movie version of the first book The Housemaid is going to be released in theaters on December 19th, this will be a good time to look at where it all started. I read that novel for book club, and it certainly lives up to the hype by taking a typical fairy tale situation and turning it on its head.

The Housemaid is about a woman with a secretive past who gets hired by a wealthy family to clean their house. Millie keeps the Winchesters’ house tidy, collects their daughter from school, and cooks a nice meal before eating alone in the attic. She tries to ignore how much Nina – the matriarch – makes a mess just to watch her clean it up. On top of that, Nina’s handsome husband Andrew seems more broken each day. Millie imagines what life would be like if she was in her place. She wears one of Nina’s dresses just once just to see what it’s like. Millie is punished before she realizes that the door to her room only locks from the outside. However, the Winchesters don’t know what she is capable of.

This is the kind of novel one reads by the pool. It’s easy to get through. It’s predictable in the first half, but the twist will certainly have readers rethinking certain parts. Some of my book club members mentioned that it had similarities to Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak, and I certainly see that. Both contain women in dire situations who are hired to work for a wealthy family and try to figure out why weird stuff keeps happening. At the same time, there were enough differences between the two. My review of Hidden Pictures will be posted soon.

The characters were compelling enough. I was immediately rooting for Millie from the first page. She spent time in prison and wants to start a new life. Getting the housemaid job is a start. However, Nina makes her life a living nightmare by trashing the home and giving her contradictory instructions. At first, I didn’t like Nina for obvious reasons, but the second half explores her backstory. It made me like her immensely. As for Andrew, he’s a very nice prince. Let’s leave it at that.

When I mentioned that The Housemaid feels like a fairy tale turned on its head, I mainly refer to the musical Into the Woods. For those who don’t know, it’s a show that involves a handful of well-known fairy tale characters (Cinderella, Jack, Rapunzel, and Little Red Riding Hood) as they try to achieve their dreams. The first act plays out as expected, but the second half explores what happens after “happily ever after.” 

That’s how I felt while reading The Housemaid. A beautiful, but downtrodden woman gets a job cleaning up a home in a wealthy suburb. Then, the fat and ugly matriarch treats the maid cruelly, but her handsome husband takes pity on her and tries to help. If that doesn’t sound like a Cinderella retelling, I don’t know what is. 

Speaking of Cinderella, I was triggered by Millie being in her room in the attic. It reminded me of when the stepmother locks Cinderella up there in the Disney animated version. I was scared for Millie because I wanted her to be alright. McFadden plays with expectations during the scenes in which she is up there very well, especially in the beginning. From the blurb, readers know that the titular character is going to end up locked in the attic, yet the author keeps them guessing as to when. 

McFadden reminds me of Lisa Jewell in the way they play with suspense. They know readers will be afraid of what’s going to happen, and they lean into that. In other words, they go, “Yep, it’s exactly what you think it’s going to occur and so much worse.”

For example, the first time Millie thinks that the door has been shut, it got me thinking that she was locked in there for good.

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden is what happens when one combines Cinderella and the show Dexter. It may be an easy read, but it packs so much. The characters are interesting in their own ways, and the twist will make people rethink what they just looked at. I would recommend it to readers who love psychological thrillers and love authors like Lisa Jewell and Ruth Ware. It truly is a fairy tale turned on its head. 
Before I go, I want to let you know that I plan on seeing the movie version of The Housemaid starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried very soon. Stay tuned for that review!

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