 A lot of what I read and talk about on this channel is not exactly mainstream. And you know, that's by design because part of the reason I started this channel is because I didn't really have people to talk about the stuff I read with. You know, I read and talk about a lot of fantasy and science fiction and also just weird stuff that I find. You know, romance novels by Saddam Hussein or bizarre fanfictions, you know, things like that. Like, that's what I read because I enjoy it and that's what I talk about because I enjoy it. So once in a while, it's nice to get a feel for what other people read, you know, like more normal people who don't do this as like a major hobby or at least just aren't interested in the same genres I am, partially to get out of my comfort zone and partially just to see what the normal cultural zeitgeist is into these days. And The Maid is one of these books and it's not good. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. The Maid is what I'm going to refer to as something your mom's book club would read. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way, so I apologize if it comes across that way. But I mean it in the sense of like, okay, this definitely isn't any sort of fantasy or sci-fi. It doesn't really have super deep lore. It's not even all that complicated, really, but it does have some appeal to it. It's about a normal person who's solving a murder case while also dealing with their personal demons. You know, you can probably think of a lot of other books that fall into this category. The first one that comes to mind that also got really big was The Girl on the Train. Now The Girl on the Train, while I wasn't a huge fan of it, I can at least see the appeal of it and I can see why it would get so much bigger than something like, say, the Stormlight Archive. Because the Stormlight Archive is really big among fantasy fans and really popular among fantasy fans, but among regular people it's not that well known and they probably wouldn't be that into it for various reasons. And The Maid, it got somewhat popular when it came out at the beginning of this year and it seemingly got some decent reviews and it sold a lot and I'll be honest, I don't know why. I don't see what the appeal is here. Like, it follows Molly, Molly Gray, who works as a maid at a super fancy hotel and one day she finds the dead body of a patron in his room. And this guy is named Mr. Black, Molly already knew him somewhat well and he was very wealthy and so it's just, oh okay, he died, what happened here and that is the rest of the book. Now given that this is a murder mystery, you would expect it to be about, you know, the main character trying to solve the mystery, you know, going around investigating, talking to people, picking up clues, putting all the pieces together, you know, that's what good murder mysteries are supposed to do at least. And this one has the same problem that a lot of other murder mysteries seem to have nowadays, which is that it focuses on everything but the investigation, you know, it's mostly just focused on the character's personal lives and personal drama and the murder is just what brings that out. I made fun of some terrible murder mystery not that long ago called 14 Ways to Die, which had a similar problem, you know, it was allegedly about catching this serial killer but it was really just focusing on the main character's life, which wasn't frankly that interesting and her going around doing other stuff and then at the end like oh okay, I guess that's the killer. We just find it out, there's not an actual mystery with clues where the audience can try putting it together and there's not really much for the characters to do frankly so it just wound up being a boring book and a couple years ago I also read one of us is lying which had a very, very similar problem and at first I was thinking okay, those are both young adults so that might be why, that might just be a problem within that sub genre there, like young adult murder mysteries, that sounds like a very small sub genre not that I'm saying it out loud but whatever but the maid is made for adults so I guess this is just something that happens nowadays. Like after the opening sequence where we're briefly introduced to Molly and then she finds Mr. Black's dead body, we just spend like a quarter to a third of the book on flashbacks about her life, explaining her life up to this point and frankly it's not that interesting. Like her mother abandoned her when she was young so she was raised by her grandmother and her mother died a long time ago but that didn't bother her much because she didn't know her and then more recently her grandmother also died and she likes her job as a maid but it doesn't pay enough so she's having money troubles and she also doesn't like her boss very much like the head maid named Cheryl at their hotel and that's kind of it. You know there's really nothing else there she doesn't even really get into much trouble or anything regarding the investigation until the latter half of the book which things did pick up a little bit there for a little while I admit but it quickly went back down into the realm of mediocrity. Now learning all these details about Molly's life and about what led her to this point might have been fine if it actually gave us any details about the crime but we we get nothing like we learn about her relationship with Mr. Black and how he just wasn't a very nice person which okay I guess that gives some motivation for why some people might want him dead but it just that's it you know that's all we get and you could have done that in so much less time so it just it doesn't work on any level like the end of the book or rather the last chunk of the book is at a courtroom trial where the murder suspect is being put on the stand and they're trying the judge and jury and everything are trying to charge him with the crime and Molly is you know giving testimony there and that's when I realized okay this would have been a lot better had this been the start of the book and the entire thing was just flashbacks based on characters testimonies or even just Molly's testimony because think about it if that's what this book was then the audience the judge and the jury could all have been slowly putting the pieces together ourselves until eventually it comes to light that okay yes this is who killed Mr. Black and this is why this person should be found guilty or should be acquitted you know like you could do a lot with that because well it would be at least a little bit different you don't necessarily need to go crazy and different with murder mysteries but at the very least it would have been a neat way to go about it you know it would still be the characters investigating and the audience and the characters finding clues and putting them together till we find out who the killer was which is the whole appeal of murder mystery at least I thought that's what it was supposed to be and yeah instead Molly doesn't even really investigate like I said she just kind of wanders around occasionally gets into some mild trouble and gets all the answers handed to her which is the same problem that I had with again 14 ways to die and one of us is lying so it's just I don't know man it just fails on a very basic level some of this may have been fine had Molly been a more interesting character but she just isn't you know like I said her backstory is not that great and she's not a good investigator quite frankly like I believe she's supposed to be autistic like the book doesn't ever come right out and say it but she acts stereotypically autistic like she doesn't really understand how social niceties are supposed to work and she regularly misses the point of things but quite frankly her regularly missing the point of things doesn't make her come across as autistic it makes her come across as very very stupid like there is a point where some characters are in a hotel room and they're very clearly up to something nefarious and they kind of panic when she walks in and sees them and she sees a bunch of white powder on the table and obviously it's cocaine but she says who's eating powdered donuts here without a plate and she just wipes it up and like is this an edgy Amelia Badelia reboot because that's what this feels like it feels like an edgy Amelia Badelia reboot where instead of just missing the point of her employer's instructions she is an idiot who winds up coming into drug deals and coming across murder investigations if you never read Amelia Badelia it's a children's book series about a maid who like I said she just misses her employer's instructions a lot like there will be instructions that say draw the drapes and that means close the curtains in the living room but she just says okay draw the drapes so she'll draw a sketch of the drapes or something you know it's she's missing the point of things and maybe she's also autistic I don't know but this just feels like a dark and edgy reboot of that it's really stupid see how this book isn't good quite frankly I don't have much else to add I know this was a relatively short review like I'll have a brief spoiler section at the end because obviously the reveal of who the killer is is also very unsatisfying this is just not a good book but it's also just so basic that there's nothing else to really add like Molly's not an interesting character and we spend the whole book with her it's all from her perspective we hear about how she likes the Olive Garden and we hear about her love life and how that she doesn't have much luck there but like as a murder mystery it's just not that good as a drama it's not that good so I just don't have much else to say and if you want to know who the killer is I guess we'll do a spoiler section now if you want something to happen you just need to pray and not be a Muslim or Jewish okay so who killed mr. black it was his ex-wife because he was just he wasn't very nice he left her for a much younger woman but he mistreated her as well it's just it is a whole thing she didn't like him much so he killed her but the thing is at the beginning of the book when Molly walks in and sees his dead body she faints right and after she wakes up she actually sees Mrs. Black there or the former Mrs. Black whatever and she they have a conversation and Molly agrees to help her cover up her crime but we don't see this we the audience do not see this until the very end after the court trial after someone else has already gone to prison for the crime now the guy who went there was already a scumbag so we don't really feel bad for him but still you could probably at least focus a little bit on how he's serving time for a crime he didn't commit and quite frankly I'm more upset that we see everything from Molly's perspective right we see the entire book from her perspective it's first person and the author cheated by not showing us this like the character knew and she just never thought about it in her narration saying okay Mrs. Black killed him that's what happened yep like that's so stupid that is so cheap and it just makes the whole thing feel sterile and dumb and I'll be honest I think this last-minute twist could have been good had again this whole book been focused on the courtroom trial like it could slowly put the pieces together and then at the end realize okay yes he he is the one who killed Mr. Black let's put him away and then at the end we get that reveal where Molly's like oh actually thinking oh actually it was Mrs. Black and then we realize oh okay so not everything she said was true and this was like them trying to alter the story a little bit to save Mrs. Black from going to prison because she was kind of justified in what she did okay like that would have been an interesting twist but like they didn't do that like it's weird like again this is a book for normies so I'm not asking it to be super weird or super experimental or anything like that but just still you had an opportunity to do at least something with it there like if that's how it turned out and it was actually a good twist at the end then I might have said looked back at this book a little bit more fondly and I don't know if I would necessarily recommend it or anything but I would have thought it was better than this this this just feels very clumsy I don't have a better word for it but it like I said this twist feels extremely sterile extremely clumsy and extremely dumb and this whole book is boring quite frankly that's the biggest crime it commits it is boring it is lacking in any sort of tension like we don't want to know the answer to the mystery of who killed Mr. Black and I don't know it's not even like offensively bad or anything like that it is just boring and bad and I don't like it so don't read the maid please goodbye special special special thanks to everyone who watched including all the patrons whose names are here and the $10 and up above the $10 patrons are Apple Savillain and Olivia Ray and Brother Santotys, Buffy Valentine, Carolina Clay, Dan Anceliovich, Dark King, Dio, Echo, Eevee, Flax, Great Griebo, Carcat Kitsune, 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