★★★
I have mixed feelings about this book. It didn’t really feel exciting, it’s more that I hated all the characters. And the plot twist was pretty easy to guess.
While I was reading, I wrote a log of my thoughts. I guessed the plot twist at around 30%.
To begin with, the most commonly recurring thought was this: I don’t like Millie. From the start, she was lying to Nina. I got a lot of second-hand embarrassment when Nina found out she was lying about wearing glasses. Like, lying about such an insignificant detail is so unnecessary. I get that she doesn’t want to threaten the woman she works for, but like please. Plus, she seemed overly paranoid from the start. Like, as soon as she enters the attic, she immediately feels all panicked, but like chill girl. And I get that it’s supposed to give the reader a sense of ominousness and shit, but I’m sure there were better ways to do that. I have a bone to pick with Frida about her authorial choices, but we’ll get into that later. I digress, I felt like she shouldn’t be so paranoid and suspicious while living in the attic, since it’s better than her previous living situation, right?
Also, one of my biggest icks in Millie’s character was how she thirsted for Andrew. To me, she resembled a dog in heat or something. She was thirsting for Enzo AND Andrew, like, please find a hobby, bro. I even clocked a moment when she called Andrew by his nickname Andy (not out loud, in her head).
I found Andrew’s character even more unlikable. And, yes, he did turn out to be this insane psycho dude, but even before, when he was still a nice guy and a “perfect” husband. I hate cheaters, and he seemed like a cheater to me from his first interaction with Millie. So I never really liked the guy. At first, I liked his patience with Nina, and I kinda felt bad for him, but once I started to look deeper into their interactions, I pretty much guessed the plot. The thought I had was “Andrew is too good to be true, so maybe he’s the true villain, and Nina is being abused by him.” So that’s pretty spot on so early into the book.
Back to Andrew being a cheater—what really cemented him as a cheater in my head was when he and Millie were watching TV in their underwear late at night. No loyal, loving husband would do that. If I were Nina, I’d be furious too, but now, after reading the end, I know she felt satisfaction instead of anger. I’d be itching to get rid of this guy, too.
Millie was so mean. She kept calling Nina fat and ugly and undeserving of Andrew. Like girl, pls calm down, you’re not any better. She judges Nina for being “crazy,” but Millie was a criminal, so she isn’t any better or more deserving of Nina’s life. Millie’s character was entirely unlikable to me, and that made it so much harder to read the book. The way she thirsted over Andrew pissed me off; she’s so unprofessional. Like this woman is paying you and housing you to be a maid, so how could you go far past your boundaries? I also found Millie very delusional; she thinks she’s a detective and rushes to conclusions. And I get that that’s needed to help the plot proceed, but it was very unrealistic because it wouldn’t play out like that in real life.
Plus, when Nina and Andrew were heard fighting by Millie after they found out Nina couldn’t have kids and Millie refused to leave until she made sure Andrew was safe, I wanted to throw the book across the room. Millie is so embarrassing. I hated her character so much; she was so shameless. Like, who are you to be worried about Andrew’s safety? You’re literally just the maid.
At first, I didn’t like Nina, which was inevitable because of how her character was portrayed, but when the hints started dropping that she was “crazy” and all that stuff, I started to empathize with her. It was at that point that I kinda knew that Nina would turn out to be the “good guy” while Andrew would be the true villain of the story. I really felt bad for Nina; she was “crazy”, she was fat, and she couldn’t have kids, yet her husband is flirting with the maid. I hated both Andrew and Millie for that. I saw Nina as a woman who was obviously struggling with something; meanwhile, Millie is shamelessly gossiping about her (even though she’s the reason Millie isn’t homeless) and acting like she’s any better when she’s an ex-convict. At that point, it still hadn’t been revealed why Millie went to prison, but I knew she wasn’t any better than Nina, so she had no reason to be so mean to her. And Nina hadn’t ever threatened Millie or gotten aggressive with her, so she was being unfair by being so scared and assuming Nina was out to get her.
I felt really annoyed by how short-sighted Millie was. As she acted like a detective and shit, but the thought never occurred to her that Enzo’s warning was about Andrew, not Nina. But I figured that out fast. This book was pretty predictable. And, once again, Millie is so embarrassing. Not her smelling Andrew and looking at his chest hair. PLS I can’t do this anymore. And like at that time, he was grappling with the fact that he wouldn’t be able to have a child with Nina, meanwhile Millie is trying to make a move on him. I can’t with her.
The worst part was when Andrew and Millie went to Manhattan together. Like, okay, I get that it was all a part of Nina’s plan. But did Millie seriously go with her employer’s husband to watch a musical and then SLEEP IN A HOTEL ROOM WITH HIM? It was obvious that things would lead to what they did. And not her wearing a short ass dress around another woman’s husband. She had zero respect for Nina. And neither did Andrew. He was such a bitch bro, like flirting with the maid and taking her out while his wife’s gone and like she’s mentally ill. And I know now that she wasn’t actually mentally ill, but those were my thoughts at the time, and I still think he’s a bitch.
I found Millie so delusional for thinking that she has a chance with Andrew. Like he’s this rich guy (who’s already married) and she’s just a maid and an ex-con. She keeps thinking of their outing as a date, and the whole time I’m thinking “girl lock in you’re literally his MAID”. And then she says she looks better with Andrew as a couple than with Nina. Like, leave this woman alone, it’s bad enough you’re after her man. I don’t even wanna talk about the rest of what happened when they were in Manhattan. I expected it; they were both bitches.
As I kept reading, I started wondering if Millie being so unlikable was an authorial choice or if that just happened accidentally. I think I would’ve liked this book a lot more if Millie were actually tolerable and reasonable.
Millie sleeps with Andrew once, and now she’s in love with him. Great. This girl is so delusional, I can’t. “He deserves better than Nina. Yeah he deserves you because you’re both bitches. And I’m so sick of her talking about how she could give him a baby. Like, yeah, you could, and so could any other young woman. She thinks she’s the only fertile woman in the world. Like Andrew is attractive, he could find another girl if he wanted to. I actually can’t stand Millie. She was so obsessed with Andrew, it’s really concerning. And she keeps talking about some connection between them GIRL PLS. When she said, “If he decided to choose me over her, this would be my house,” like you’re literally a criminal who used to live in her car and works as a maid. And a homewrecker. I hate her.
Anyway, I need to stop talking about how much I hate Millie (but I just can’t stand herrrrrr). Andrew and Nina get into this huge fight and Nina leaves. So they’re separated now and they’ll get a divorce later (I think). I remember really wanting Nina to get her revenge on them, but lowkey the revenge was just leaving Millie with Andrew. He’s actually a psycho. Now that Nina is gone, Millie and Andrew are free to be together (not that that stopped them before). Now, Millie keeps worrying that Nina will do something, but she should’ve been married to her perfect man. He actually disgusts me. “Nina had to be insane to let this guy get away.” Okay Millie, we’ll see how you like him when he treats you like he treated Nina…
But didn’t Millie ever question Andrew’s perfect character? Like I found him very suspicious from the start, but even after Enzo’s continued warnings (even after Nina left), Millie was just so stupid and blinded by this guy. (P.S. I kinda wanted Andrew to kill Millie because of how much I hated her, and like I knew he was gonna turn out to be a psycho even before he showed his true colors.)
I love Enzo. Like, he’s such a good guy. He helped Nina and kept checking in on her. He’s so sweet. And he didn’t want to put Millie in danger either, and kept warning her. I love himmmm. I like both him and Nina, and I really wanted them to get together. I’m still mad he’s with Millie now (spoiler for the next book, I guess). Also, not him pretending not to speak English only to pull out perfect English out of nowhere.
By the end of part one, Millie gets locked in the attic by Andrew. (And she’s still somehow making excuses for him.) After that, we get to see Nina’s point of view. I knew she wouldn’t be evil and crazy like they made her out to be. I was really happy to find out she got rid of Andrew and can live freely with her daughter now. I do have one thing to comment on regarding Nina’s backstory (or rather how it’s written): was there really a need to describe her breasts with so much detail? Like, I didn’t need to know that they were bursting with milk and all that. I found that really weird, and if a male author wrote this, nobody would have it. I’m still not having it. Maybe it’s only weird to me because I’m a teenager who doesn’t really know about that stuff, but it can’t be normal to describe a woman’s breasts in such detail.
Moving on. I was glad to find out that Nina was getting PHD when she was pregnant. I always wondered about her education. But Nina was actually smart, even though Millie talked about her like she did nothing with her life. I’m sad Andrew prevented her from living the life she wanted. In this flashback, I was shocked at how normal Nina seemed. The whole story, she was depicted as this crazy lady, but she’s really quite normal and real. I do have another thing to comment on. Once she accepts Andrew’s dinner invitation (on the first day that they met, I must add), she agrees to let his mom babysit her daughter. Why would she do that when she barely knows him and doesn’t know his mother at all? She’s literally leaving her kid with a stranger. Even if he’s rich and handsome, he could still be a bad person.I know the author isn’t a mother (nvm I searched it up and she actually does have kids). Anyway, that was a bad parenting move on Nina’s end. I found it so unrealistic that on their first date (and on the first day they met), Andrew told Nina that he was like willing to take care of her and her daughter and that he wanted to marry her. Like calm down, it’s literally your first day knowing her. Nina should’ve seen that as a red flag.
Seeing how Nina used to be, we can compare and see how different she is in the present. Like she used to work out all the time and stay in perfect shape, but now she’s described as fat. Also, not her wanting to please Andrew so much that she had a whole wardrobe of white clothes because that’s what he likes. And she gave that clothing to Millie, I felt like she was setting Millie up (and that does turn out to be true). I’m sad that Nina wanted to go back to graduate school, and she had all these ambitions, but was unable to achieve anything because of Andrew. She questions why Andrew picked her and feels that she isn’t deserving of such a great guy. But when something seems too good to be true, it probably is. He had so many red flags and rushed their relationship; how did she not get suspicious?
So, he locks Nina in the attic because she missed a hair appointment and her roots were showing. (I found it so weird for a man to pay attention to a woman’s roots lowkey). But even when he’s done such a terrible thing to her and locked her up, she still makes excuses for him and tries to justify his actions. There is no justification; your husband is a psycho. (Also OMG the scratches on the door at the start were from Nina </3). At that point, I kinda realized the whole plot for sure, like she found Millie as a replacement for herself, and that’s why she started letting herself go, so that Andrew would choose the maid over her, and she could escape him. I also thought maybe she wanted Millie there as a witness, so that Andrew couldn’t hurt her anymore, because there was someone else in the house. Andrew really is quite sick in the head. To do this to a woman just because she isn’t the image of perfection he imagined in his head. He then proceeds to make her pull out over two hundred strands of hair from her scalp. Absolute psycho. He left her there in the attic for hours, no food, no water, no contact with the outside world, not even a toilet. Nina’s hair is probably damaged from this, and maybe that’s why when Millie sees her, she comments on how thin her hair is.
When Andrew finally lets her out, I could guess how he was going to make her seem crazy. He acted all sweet, and made her question if any of this really happened. He’s making her doubt herself, which made me realize that the incident they talked about where she tried to kill her daughter was probably fake and orchestrated by him to make her seem crazy. Which is actually what happened. And even though I knew that was how things would play out, I felt sick to my stomach when Nina woke up and heard the water running in the bathroom. She opened it to find her daughter almost drowning, all the while she’s been drugged by Andrew and is barely strong enough to walk. I thought she would drown herself from the guilt of letting her daughter drown or something, but the police came and she was sent to psychiatric hospital. Andrew managed to make Nina doubt everything, even her own sanity.
When we finally met Andrew’s mother, I got so creeped out. Because she’s his type. Like she’s blonde and wears all white. It’s so creepyyy. WHy are you attracted to women who look like your mom? And it’s like a requirement for him too. Like unless they fit his exact type, they’ll get punished or whatever. That’s insane. This is lowkey how I view all mama’s boys lol.
Anyway I felt so bad for Nina because Andrew won’t let her go back to work or to finish her degree. He’s stalled her life. But I was glad when she start confiding in Enzo. Like I always knew Enzo was good. He has my heart, I swear. He was gonna break down the attic door to let Nina out. “You don’t deserve to be treated this way” stopppp my heart. I knew he’d be the one to help Nina out of her situation. And he’s at their house so often to make sure Nina’s okay. He’s so sweettt. And like the same afternoon Nina left, when Andrew fires him, Enzo has no problem leaving now that he doesn’t have to worry about Nina. I honestly wanted Nina and Enzo to get together and I’m so mad they didn’t.
I was lowkey disgusted with Nina for the used tampons she used to leave on the floor for Millie to clean, but now I get that she left them there to kinda let Andrew know that she isn’t pregnant because he wants a kid so bad. I was thinking that once he realizes that she can’t get pregnant he’ll give up on her and move on to someone else who can give him a kid, like Millie. And this did actually happen, I guess. However, multiple factors were at play.
I though Nina’s daughter actually liked Andrew, because she’d only listen to him. But it turns out she only did that so he wouldn’t hurt her mom 🙁 that’s so sad. I thought he was like a good dad at least, but no he emotionally hurts the daughter by doing that.
Anyways, Andrew ends up finding the cash and passport Nina and Enzo hid so she could leave. It’s then revealed that Nina did hire Millie as her replacement. (This book really was predictable). I honestly was kinda glad that Millie was stuck with Andrew, because I hated her so much. And like she’s the one who thinks he’s so perfect, so she can stay with him.
Back to Millie. So now that she’s been locked up in the attic by Andrew, she makes the same excuses for him that Nina does. She tries to justify this because she refuses to believe that her perfect man could do this to her. But Millie already has fears of being locked somewhere after her time in prison, so this is even worse for her. He punishes her for not putting his books back where they belonged by making her balance three heavy books on her stomach for three hours. She ends up having to repeat it twice. But, Nina was smart and picked a woman she knew could handle Andrew. She pepper-sprays him and locks him in the attic. She punishes him just as he punished her, and even makes him pull out his own teeth. She was more hardcore than I thought.
Andrew ends up dying of dehydration. His fault for not leaving enough water in the attic. So Millie did kill him. I did hate her a bit less because of how strong she was. I was surprised Nina wanted to go back and help her. If I was her, I’d be scared that things would backfire on me. I would rather she deals with the consequences than I, you know? But Nina is better than me, I guess. And Millie goes home with a lot of money and no criminal charges.
At Andrew’s funeral, we got to understand just why he behaved this way. It was because of his mother. That honestly shocked me a bit. But at least we’re done with that mess of a family. It’s always the mama’s boys, bro. His mom lowkey deserves to have the same thing done to her, because Andrew got his karma, but she didn’t.
Now, after all this, Nina and her daughter moved somewhere. I don’t remember. Enzo didn’t go with her 🙁 I really wanted them to get together. He’s with Millie now, unfortunately. He’s a bit of a whore. I thought his feelings for Nina were stronger than that. Now, Millie and Enzo help women get rid of their abusive husbands. At least Nina is happy.
Overall, I can’t really say I liked this book. It was quite frustrating to read because the characters were just so annoying. Especially Millie, which makes it even worse because she’s the main character. She can’t really be ignored. The plot itself wasn’t very complex. It was pretty easy to guess the plot twist. I felt like Millie was being stupid on purpose. Like some things were clear, but she ignored the signs and didn’t think too much about anything. It was also really unrealistic (I mean, how does a wealthy guy just die and the police act like nothing happened? He was locked in the attic and starved. I don’t think that kind of thing just happens. And if one police officer brushes it off, his superior would probably look more into it, right?) and the characters did strange things at times. But whatever, I’m done now. It was okay. It was really easy to read, so that’s a good thing, I guess. I got through it pretty quickly, and it wasn’t boring or slow at all. I’d say it was neither good nor bad. It’s the type of book you read and don’t really think about again.
But there’s a movie adaptation coming up soon, so that’s that. Sydney Sweeney is cast as Millie. As if I didn’t hate Millie enough, they had to cast her as Sydney Sweeney?? I don’t know if I’ll watch it, but if I do, I know I won’t like it.
I already have the next book in the series and have already started reading it. But after that, I don’t think I’ll read any more Frida McFadden books. I don’t think her writing style is for me. I do wanna say that the second book, The Housemaid’s Secret, is better than the first. Stay tuned for that review.
