This book was pitched to me as a dark academia thriller and that’s all I needed to desperately want to read it. Overall, it didn’t disappoint. Set against a British university backdrop, the reader is brought along as a therapist investigates deaths of students in a mysterious group called the Maidens. This atmosphere is truly the strength of the book. I enjoyed the creepiness and the weirdness of the academia setting. Overall, I thought the plot was solid and the characters were compelling enough to root for a good outcome.
In anticipation for this book, I binge read Michaelides’s other book “The Silent Patient” and doing that is what made this book fall a little flat. While I did like the continued Greek references that were interwoven through both books, I found that some of the same tropes were used in both books and I just didn’t love that I was reading the same sort of thing again. While this was by no means a large part of the book, it did detract enough from the experience. I hope in the future that the author will continue to weave the same mythos throughout his books, but I hope the character tropes are a little more varied.
All in all, I really liked this thriller. It lived up to the hype and I am sure that many other readers will enjoy it.
In anticipation for this book, I binge read Michaelides’s other book “The Silent Patient” and doing that is what made this book fall a little flat. While I did like the continued Greek references that were interwoven through both books, I found that some of the same tropes were used in both books and I just didn’t love that I was reading the same sort of thing again. While this was by no means a large part of the book, it did detract enough from the experience. I hope in the future that the author will continue to weave the same mythos throughout his books, but I hope the character tropes are a little more varied.
All in all, I really liked this thriller. It lived up to the hype and I am sure that many other readers will enjoy it.