The Maid

The first half or so of the book was frustrating, intentionally so if I may add. Perhaps that's the beauty of unreliable narrators, for you're forced to step into the shoes of someone and perceive the world through their eyes. Despite the frustration, I enjoyed the book thoroughly (especially those little tidbits by Molly's grandma). It's not much of a mystery novel or a deeply thought-provoking read. You as a reader can see the whole picture.

The message I receive is clear - Do not judge others, for your perceptions are yours alone.

4,5 stars. Not a masterpiece, but good. Light and fun. Fun perspective - through the autistic maids eyes. Neat plot.

Good advice from Grams, “Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.” I read some bad reviews about this book, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's different than so many of the other books I typically read. Prose's character Molly reminds me of some people I know and she is just delightful!

 There are things that I really liked about this book, like the characters. And things that I didn't particularly liked, like the convoluted plot and unrealistic resolution. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading this book right until the point when everything went to hell and then was resolved in less that 12 hours.

Loved the voice of Molly, the neuro diverse maid.
The story is a slow burn but I kept turning pages because of her voice.
Two unexpected twists at the end!

2.5

Aspects of this book inspired me and left me in awe. Others made me roll my eyes and left me dissatisfied. First off—the genre. I'm not sure what others would categorize it as, but I found myself very excited to read for the first time what I'd call an upmarket cozy mystery. I found Molly's eccentricities endearing and right away I was rooting for her. The author provided an interesting cast of characters in a fabulous setting for a locked room mystery. The crime in question was perfectly suited to the surroundings. Through the first 50% of the book, I enjoyed every page, with only one niggling doubt—did our heroine have the wherewithal to solve this mystery? And sure enough, she did not. True, fiction revolves around characters with agency, and Molly did make decisions which resulted in personal growth, but I felt the solution to the mystery didn't have the payoff I'm used to. Actually, in my opinion the last 25% of the book kinda crumbled apart. Characters who were once intriguing and autonomous morphed into a pat one-dimensional piece in a puzzle. If I were judging this book on it's last quarter I'd rate it a three, but because the first half was so outstanding, I settled on four stars.

Edit: Can anyone recommend a palate cleanser read in the comments, desperately need one. I'd prefer it to be a mystery/thriller page turner. Thanks!

I'll keep this short, I'd rather not waste time writing about this book.
It's a completely overhyped book, there are so many holes in the story and even more unanswered questions. The protagonist is supposed to be autistic but she conveniently stops being one when the writer wants her not to be. The naïveté itself is stretched too far, and probably has the worst police work I've seen in a book.

So in a nutshell, a very bad plot, confusing characters, climax that simmered down in a couple of pages, little research on part of the writer and in my opinion a very bad ending.

P.S Tried keeping this spoiler free, otherwise there's a lot to rant about.

possible spoiler alert

I had a free credit from audible so I was like what the hell. I have never read any of Nita's books but I will follow her from now on. The names were kind of basic but the plot and ending were awesome. The naïve main character raised by her late grandmother “Molly” was a perfectionist that happens to be a maid. She was raised by an elderly women and essentially had no common sense. That would eventually become part of her detriment. She befriended the rich guest wife and the drama began. She found him dead and quickly became a suspect. She had to find a way out of the quandary she was in. The plot unfolded and had some ups, downs, and curves in it. I love how the story unfolded and I read the entire book in a few days. I think if you haven't read this you should do so NOW.

4.5/5 stars

An enjoyable read. I really liked Molly and found the story compelling but I was disappointed with the ending and the final (what I feel was unnecessary) twist.

Uniquely Captivating
I'll be honest, I wasn't especially drawn to the story when I listened to the audiobook sample and read the description. It seemed a little too odd. But I'm really glad I gave it a try. Molly was a terrific heroine and a pleasure to get to know. I eagerly look forward to another book by Nita Prose.

There was some foul language, mostly toward the end, but overall very clean—no pun intended.

Good start but then goes downhill

Great debut and a nice twist on the unreliable narrator.

It is easy to do the “quirky socially awkward” girl poorly. This feels like a book that needed a hook to make it popular, so she made the main character “quirky and socially awkward” without saying she is in the spectrum. And since the author just randomly assigned that to make her book popular, it is not done well. It reads like a list from Google of symptoms of autism. There is no depth or nuance to the character. It feels like the author is making fun of her like her coworkers do. I really hate that so many people will read this and think that is what autism is.

3,5⭐️
The first half was really boring. I seriously considered to stop reading this book. But after the first half it got better. I thought it ended after the last chapter, but the epilogue

This was cute, and a reasonably interesting mystery. But just interesting - not compelling or fascinating. The hook is supposed to be Molly and her distinct outlook on life, but her character felt a bit muddy, having limitations, advantages, and quirks inconsistently and as required for the plot. A fine diversion, but I prefer Christie.

For the most part, a cute mystery. Molly was sweet, although her long-winded politeness wore thin by the end. I enjoyed her character growth, nonetheless. Giselle's character was intriguing as well. There were some moments that put a damper on the story for me, such as later bits with Gran. That felt unnecessary and almost out of character from what we're led to believe. Still, I enjoyed it more than I didn't. 

It's a 3.25 or thereabouts.

One of the most charming protagonists! I really enjoyed this book mainly because the characters were so engrossing. Molly, the maid, was managing grief and the personal and financial hardships of living without a family when she is framed for a series of crimes.
Her resolve and her forthrightness bring a pragmatic charm to what follows. Her band of supporters will make you smile.
My favourite read of the year, so far!

This was definitely not my cup of tea.

The book follows the story of Molly, who appears to be neurodivergent, although there is no direct diagnosis in the text.
Molly is a 25 years old who loves her job as a maid in a luxury hotel. She struggles with social interactions, has difficulty in understanding conversations and intonations and I found her very childish.
Cleaning plays an important role in her life, largely through the influence of her grandmother, who raised her and established daily cleaning tasks that seem to work as a calming and coping strategy for Molly.
Molly finds a dead man in one of the rooms and ends being the lead suspect of the investigation.

What I didn't like:
- The book summary includes almost the entire plot leaving little room for discovery.
- Molly's personal characteristics seem overly based on existing stereotypes of people on the spectrum. I am not an expert on the subject in the least, but I have read other books with characters on the spectrum, some written by people on the spectrum, and they have a different depth.
- The only reason why there is a plot is because Molly is neuroatypical and everyone is increadibly mean and take advantage of her. This left me very unconfortable, to the point I almost quit reading the book.
I believe books are a good way to teach and promote diversity. However, I think the way to do it should be by focusing on more than their differences. It feels wrong to me and I don't think it is inclusive at all if the story does not work without that specific difference (excluding historical and non fiction obviously).

I really hope that people who struggle as much as Molly have more support on their daily lives and interactions.

The only confort I take of this is that it felt too unreal, I really do not want to believe that this would happen, especially from the police and detective side.

This is obviously an unpopular opinion as there is a lot of hype around the book and it is even being adapted to screenplay by Universal.

Finished this sweet book today. I see why it's on week 7 of the NYTimes bestseller list. Good story, great characters and a feel good message. Not my usual dark and twisty fare- a delightful change for me. I recommend this one as a good palate cleanser when you've had enough blood and guts and torment and terror.

From whatever point of view: This is a disgrace of a book. Let's look at the story itself first: Molly, usually referred to and sometimes self-referring as “Molly the Maid” (as if that's all she is), works as a maid in the Regency Grand Hotel. One day, when she's cleaning a suite she finds the body of Mr. Black, a rich “power magnate”, who stays at the hotel with his second wife, Giselle.While it becomes clear to the reader very quickly that something sinister beyond the murder is afoot, Molly doesn't recognise it and, thus, quickly becomes the prime suspect in the murder case.Trying to prove Molly's innocence Molly and a bunch of coworkers-cum-friends come up with a plan to entrap the true culprit...So, there's basically nothing new plot-wise. It is unoriginal and rather boring.What about the character's, though? We get to “meet” about 20 people - which is quite a lot but, thankfully, it's manageable.The problem here is, though: Most of them are stereotypes and never get a chance to evolve into something real. There's Mr. Preston, the fatherly good-natured doorman and his sharp lawyer daughter, Charlotte, who doesn't even know Molly but doesn't hesitate to post a $800,000 bail for her...Mr. Black, the corpse, we basically only get to know in passing from descriptions by Molly and his wife no. 2, Giselle Black. Giselle is depicted as a typical trophy wife - thirty-five years her husband's junior, not only is she neglected (and, of course, having an affair) but also being physically abused. Oh, and, of course, she's also taking drugs.Rodney, Giselle's illicit lover, is pretty much a diabolical enforcer. He's written so simplistically that we know immediately that he's going to be one of the “bad guys” when we first encounter him.There's also Juan Manuel, a Mexican dishwasher in the kitchen, involved in both the mystery and its resolution. There wasn't much character description left in Prose's severely limited repertoire so he has to be content with basically being a male version of Molly. In a world of latent racism, it's easy to match the Mexican with Molly...Speaking of whom: Molly... Now, that's where Prose really “shines”. As becomes obvious very quickly, Molly is neuroatypical/neurodivergent/on the autism spectrum - whatever you want to call it. Prose doesn't mention anything about that even once, though. Instead, she has Molly being called “weird”, “weirdo”, “freak”, “awkward”, “standoffish” by “friend” and “foe” alike.Molly's “weirdness” is mostly info-dumped on us but never called what it is - probably to avoid criticism for having written about something the author doesn't really know anything about. In her “Acknowledgments” Prose thanks everyone and their dogs and lists their respective roles - but, curiously, none of them seem to have any kind of professional experience with neuroatypical persons.Prose's characterisation of Molly reads a lot like plain old guesswork. She seems to have read up on Wikipedia on autism, assembled a list of possible issues and wrote a Molly who's exhibiting most of them at the same time. »My truth highlights and prioritizes my lens on the world; it focuses on what I see best and obscures what I fail to understand—or what I choose not to examine too closely.«That's still not all, though: Molly isn't even acting consistently with the way she's being characterised. She keeps acting out of character completely. From the ultimate innocent “noble savage”, at times she becomes a cunning conspirator, willfully lying by omission, smuggling a gun and even resorting to vigilantism.»“In my experience, there are times when a good person must do something that's not quite right, but it's still the right thing to do.”«Also, Molly doesn't even seem to know anything about her condition. She knows full well she's “different” but she cannot name it. While this might have rung true some decades ago, in this day and age, Molly would know why she is “weird”.Prose simply avoids identifying Molly's issues as neuroatypical in order to avoid being held responsible for an accurate, consistent and fair depiction. As it stands, Prose can always try and wiggle her way out of it by simply disavowing that she ever meant anything beyond what she calls Molly - “socially awkward”.Maybe she did some shallow “research” because - judging by her LinkedIn profile - Prose (or rather: Pronovost) has no prior professional experience with neuroatypical people.While obviously not applying it to herself, Prose knows full well what she's doing:»“Sometimes life isn't fair,” Charlotte adds. “And if there's one thing I've learned over years of practice, it's that there's no shortage of criminals out there who will prey on a person's difference for their personal gain.”«I consider that shameful and despicable.Last and, in fact, least: This book is full of “calendar wisdom” of questionable truthfulness:»The longer you live, the more you learn. People are a mystery that can never be solved. Life has a way of sorting itself out. Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end.«One out of five stars and an especially strong recommendation to stay away from this if you're on the spectrum yourself.Blog Facebook Twitter Instagram

Conflicted on this one – it was a fast read, and I thought there were parts that were quite satisfying, but I felt like I wanted more layers before we started to figure things out.

One could take issue with the many inconsistencies and superficial characters, but honestly–I couldn't put this down. I had to find out what happens to Molly.