Spoiler-Free Review

I listened to The Maidens as an audiobook, and I enjoyed it. If you’re looking for a twisty story that mixes thriller elements with dark academia, you might like this one.

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What’s The Maidens about?

After a murderer strikes the college her niece attends, psychotherapist Mariana feels determined to discover the killer.

This had an interesting blend of psychology, thriller, Greek tragedy, and dark academia.

I’ve seen a lot of low ratings for this one, and while it wasn’t a favorite for me, I thought it was entertaining enough and kept me guessing. I suspect that because I’m late to the Alex Michaelides train, perhaps I missed the hype leading up to The Maidens‘ release and therefore had no real expectations to disappoint.

I also liked The Silent Patient just fine – I mentioned in my review of that one that I think I liked it better as an audiobook than I would have reading it with my eyes, and that was true for The Maidens, also. The narrators did a great job and captured the tone really well. Physically reading this might have been a little boring, in my opinion, because of Michaelides’ writing style.

I liked the touch of dark academia in this one and how it mixed with the suspense of a murder mystery and Michaelides’ signature psychological approach. I appreciated that this was a thriller first, with dark academia elements rather than a dark academia plot. There were also plenty of red herrings to distract the reader, and unlikable characters all around.

My biggest qualm was that I felt the main character didn’t have a compelling enough reason to impose herself onto this investigation. It was really more of an intuition that drove Mariana to stay and see this through; almost like there was something her subconscious was trying to force her to see clearly, but even she couldn’t say what or why.

This is a little thing, but I love when characters from other books make a cameo. If you read The Silent Patient, you’ll see a couple notable figures pop in.

Should you read The Maidens?

If you liked The Silent Patient, you might like this one, too. It has a psychotherapist main character, an interesting setting, and more unexpected twists. There are dark academia vibes, but I wouldn’t call this a dark academia book. It’s more of a setting than a plot setup – this is very much still a thriller at its core. Note that if unlikable or unreliable main characters aren’t your thing, this might not be for you.