The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
“Reading about life was no preparation for living it”
“My argument with so much of psychoanalysis is the preconception that suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or a sign even of illness. When in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people’s suffering.”
“The childhood shows the man, As morning shows the day.”
“What if, like the Lady of Shalott, she stopped looking at life through a mirror – and turned, and stared at it directly?”
The Maidens is about a murder that occurs at Cambridge. A former student, Mariana, has a niece, Zoe, who currently attends the university. One night she receives a phone call from Zoe who seems upset as she thinks her roommate might be the murder victim. Mariana goes to the college for support and ends up being a bigger part of the investigation than she intends. Mariana is a group therapist who looks at things with that lens. She has a patient that causes issues and could be dangerous. There is a professor, Edward Fosca, who seems like a good candidate for the main suspect. There is a group of women called The Maidens that he teaches and the victim was part of that group. Then another victim is found from that same group. What is going on at this university? Who is the murderer? Will Mariana be able to figure it out before she becomes the next victim?
Alex Michaelides creates a mood of suspense while integrating fun connections with ancient culture. I loved the setting of an old university like Cambridge. It creates this sense of history and lore that permeates the novel. I felt transported to a different time even though the story takes place in the modern age. Mariana is a tough character to like. She seems like a pushover and some of her conclusions didn’t really at up like when she associated intelligence with trauma or that police onsite talking to the dean meant the victim could only be this one particular person. Also, why would she choose to run down an alley? I didn’t understand Mariana. Zoe was also unlikeable as she constantly came across as not liking her aunt and treating her badly. Edward is conceited and a little creepy. There are a lot of creepy men in this book…”men are not to be trusted.” The first person to be assumed a suspect (one of the few not creepy men) and the subsequent interview is where the book really grabbed my interest. Up until that point I was coasting along a lazy river but then this point of the book is where the rapids began. I was carried along at a nice clip, interested in finding out how it wrapped up. There was a scene where Gauloises cigarettes were mentioned which evoked a vivid memory of me smoking those in Paris. It brought a smile to my face. On the flip side, there was a description of watching your mother cry and I related fiercely with it. “It’s horrible watching your mother cry. You feel so impotent, so powerless.” I know it is pedantic of me but Alex used the term serial killer when only two murders happened whereas the definition includes 3 or more victims. He also missed an opportunity to really bring in the gay male fans. He described a guy on stage that was shirtless with the torso dripping in sweat but didn’t go any further in descriptive detail. He could have described the abs or muscles or something but nope. I love when I make connections between books. In this one, there was two points I wanted to call out. One is when the Goldberg Variations were brought up and I read The Gold-Bug Variations in college. I listened to Bach as well. The other was by the author himself in a self-referential moment. He brought in a character from another book, a book I actually read as well. It was cool and clever with a little wink implied. Some of the words I ran across that I liked were menis, Byronic, stygian, and anagnorisis. Alex did have me guessing on who the killer could be and I never guessed how it would wrap up. Though I didn’t like how it ended, it was a surprise. It was a little too weird and out there for me. This is exactly the type of book I would pick up because it referenced ancient cultures, murder, rituals, and mythology.
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