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utterlyconfusedacademia · 2 years

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Me adding a new dark academia book to my overflowing (and mostly unread) collection:

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theartofperishingslowly · 4 months

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Need the professor from the maidens and the professor from the secret history to meet. I just need to know what would happen.

#darkacademia #literature #writing #dark academia #the secret history #henry winter #the maidens #donna tartt #alex michaelides

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ifiwasa-bluebird · 1 month

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look i really want to read the maidens by alex michealides BUT I HAVENT READ A BOOK OFF THE INTERNET IN LIKE TWO YEARS. I OPENED TRUSTY PDFDRIVE AND ZLIBRARY AND BOTH PLUNGED KNIVES OF STEEL INTO MY HEART SO. fellow readers, where on god's green earth can i find a non-virus infected version of the maidens to satiate my innate desire to read it?

#i really need it you dont UNDERSTAND #bookblr #booklr #reading #books #the maidens #bookblr i summon thee

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apoembymiria · 2 years

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No, cause, If you don’t listen to my stories/rants about the recent book I read then did you truly love me?

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1five1two · 1 year

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'The Rhinemaidens'. Ferdinand Leeke. 1913.

#art #mythological art #Figures #the maidens

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e-b-reads · 1 year

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Some things about The Maidens and The Silent Patient

These books aren't exactly tumblr classics, but they are titles I see tossed around in the public eye occasionally. I read The Maidens back in December and The Silent Patient more recently, and after marinating a few thoughts, have decided to post! I will not spoil the plots, but I will talk about, for example, whether there are major twists, so read on at your own peril.

I read The Maidens first and The Silent Patient second, even though they were published the other way around. This turned out to be an interesting order, because after reading The Silent Patient, I thought, "oh, now I understand why he got a publishing deal for that second book." I feel like Alex Michaelides had a good idea for a twisty plot, and was the right kind of writer to carry it off, and then when he went to try to write another twisty book, he made it too different and too similar at the same time, and I just didn't buy it.

The Silent Patient is pretty good, not because I love the characters (I don't think the reader is supposed to), but because I was curious what was going to happen (and, even more, what had happened in the past), and Michaelides revealed just a little at a time in a tantalizing way, and then hit with a big reveal near the end that I hadn't predicted, but that did make sense, so it was satisfying. I suspect that the normal procedure when it comes to in-patient therapy was flouted several times, mainly to get the plot to move along, but this kind of works with the character reveals, and I'm ok with some procedure smoothing for the sake of plot as long as it's believable in the book, which this mostly was. Overall, not a book I will keep and re-read, but an enjoyable thriller.

As far as The Maidens, I eventually realized that my problem with the book was that I didn't get full pictures or ideas of any of the characters at all, so none of the choices made or emotions expressed or, yes, twists and reveals of motivation really made me feel anything. When the main character made poor investigatorial choices based on strong emotion, I thought, "OK, I guess she would do that," with no emotion of my own. When an illicit relationship was revealed, along with the real murderer, I was neither shocked nor validated in an earlier guess; I mostly thought, "huh." The voice was (understandably) similar to that in The Silent Patient, but there, the first person narration meant that any confusion or lack of clarity around characterization was Theo's own personal lack of clarity about someone, so it worked. The Maidens is primarily in third person, so it didn't work at all.

Because of this drawback, I didn't have many big feelings about the plot one way or another. What I did find potentially intriguing is that The Maidens takes a classic sort of "dark academia" trope (I've been trying to define this sub-genre to myself) of one charismatic teacher with lots of student followers, and then subverts it. But since I didn't really care about or fully understand any of the characters, I couldn't decide if this was well done or not. The murderer reveal felt a little out of nowhere, but then so did many of the choices made by the characters, so it wasn't very jarring, either!

Obviously, people's preferences as to prose vary, but in my opinion, Michaelides' writing is fine, but has some weaknesses. His plot idea for The Silent Patient was good, and his style of writing worked for it. His plot idea for The Maidens might have been good if executed differently, but something about his style of writing didn't work with it, and so I didn't feel like I was reading it to find out what happened so much as reading it so I could say I did.

#some things about:#the maidens #the silent patient #alex michaelides #things about a mystery #(kind of; definitely 'thrillers' so mysterious enough)

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punki-miltonia · 11 months

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Ten Word Book Reviews: The Maidens

All the possibility, none taken; inauthentic, vapid; left wanting more

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asa-studies · 3 months

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Favorites of 2023 :)

Books

Righteous Discontent by Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham is an incredible account of the contributions of Black women to their churches from 1880 to 1920. I read this for a religious studies course and I highly recommend it for anyone even remotely interested in American Religion

Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. What can I say? It's a classic that I actually enjoyed

Subversive Habits by Shannen Dee Williams is another great book I read in a religious studies course about Black women and integration in the Catholic Church

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides was a fun read. I know this novel and the author in general have gotten negative reviews but I had a good time reading this book? Maybe I just don't read much fiction anymore? I do think many of the criticisms have some merit, but I fuck with the presence of woefully incompetent and apathetic police that felt true to life (stop giving police good pr in your fiction. ACAB baby)

Movies (this might be every movie I watched this year tbh)

Barbie (2023). You've already heard enough about this movie. My only contribution to the conversation is that it pushed my dad to better understand feminism and he kinda vibes with it now.

The Namesake (2006). I cried almost the entire time. I really loved this movie and I felt seen

Haunted Mansion (2023). Very enjoyable to watch, it's funny, it's scary, it explores the experience of grief. I'm not saying it is a technically good movie, but it's silly and fun for when you also want to feel a few emotions

Songs

"I'm Still Here" by Kate Winton

"You Make Me Sick!" by Ashnikko

"Someone Who Cares" by I Am Roze

"Contra Todo" by iLe

"When Will I Be Mine?" by Hailey Orion

Experiences

the satisfaction I felt when I finished cleaning my room

leaving an unhealthy relationship

watching the children I taught over the summer grow as people and artists

gaining coping skills for the anxiety I experience around academics

taking care of my bonsai tree

visiting a grad school I'm interested in :)

being consistently hydrated!!

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stina-is-a-punk-rocker · 1 year

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‘the maidens’ by alex michaelides, and a bunch of irrelevant tangents about my life because I find myself that entertaining

Much like people, there are some books that you find when the stars align. It’s like the Fates themselves intervene to provide you with a pocket of time that you’re so unoccupied and there’s literally nothing else better to do than the book equivalent of a one-night stand.

‘The Maidens’ came at the right place and the right time (lol that’s what she said): a Scrabble competition, everyone else being very good at Scrabble and me being very bad, and no other pdfs on my phone.

In retrospect, it’s a solid 6/10. I’ve read worse (hello Wattpad), but I’ve definitely read better, and as far as books go, it’s pretty… forgettable. I have the rare luxury of not having come from The Silent Patient to have a bias about Alex Michaelides’s work (despite me being told numerous times by numerous associates to read it. I have this thing where the more you tell me to consume a certain piece of media, I either don’t do it, or I do it out of spite. It’s called being a petty motherfucker), so the only opinions I had were nice cover + cool font. Which are the only opinions you should have about a book before you read it, in my opinion.

Spoilers ahead, so be warned. Be very, very warned. Also, trigger warnings for pretty dark subject matter, which anyone who’s read the book already knows, so I’m gonna include that under the spoiler umbrella.

I’m a tad hesitant to call it a dark academia, although I feel like that’s what was attempted. Sure, there are a couple of references to Greek mythology and literature sprinkled here and there, but it’s more like a bad sitcom referencing pop culture than anything that provides substance to the plot. It’s one of my biggest gripes with the whole book- everything from the title to the synopsis is a red herring; and, like, not that you can’t do a little hoodwinking here and there, but this is just disingenuous.

It’s the most obvious and yet the most vexing mystery ever, because- it’s kind of obvious that it’s Zoe. But her motive, and the way she goes about it is so… it just doesn’t sit quite well in my stomach.

Being traumatized does not excuse someone from traumatizing others, and there’s a discussion to be had about media villainizing traumatized characters. On the other side, there’s a way to craft a, for lack of a better word, ‘evil’ traumatized character that still humanizes them and doesn’t make them come off as a Scooby-Doo villain. Zoe’s gone through some pretty horrific shit- losing her parents at such a young age, a paedophilic uncle, and that uncle manipulating her even post mortem. And then she went on a killing spree, and tried to frame her professor for the murders, and almost killed her aunt- which, as we can all agree, are Bad Things to Do. And here’s where I came to the realization that, ah. Alex Michaelides is a dude.

Another discussion: can male writers do justice to traumatized female characters?

Because Zoe isn’t the only one. Which brings us to our heroine: Mariana, whose beauty never scared me, but it did make me want to put my head through drywall.

It’s the white woman in a horror film all over again. And it’s especially agonizing, cos this bitch is supposed to be smart. But she’s not. And it bothers me (picture me saying this in an increasingly whiney voice).

She suspects Edward Fosca killed those girls? What better way to deal with this revelation than having dinner with him alone! And getting drunk! She’s dealing with a patient who’s definitely harming himself and potentially a threat to others? Eh, forget about him (also, leave Henrys out of this, they get such a bad rep). She constantly acts on impulse and it’s painful to watch- telling literally everyone she meets and has one (01) conversation with about the Super Kool Mystery she’s solving, attacking Edward Fosca for some inane reason I can’t even remember, and fancying herself a member of the Famous Five when she’s more Secret Seven.

And the writing is just one step away from E. L. James’s inner goddess, cos Mariana’s reading facial expressions like tarot cards and I get that it’s probably meant to rub in the fact that she’s a therapist but imagine you’re reading a book about a dentist and they start talking about the oral hygiene of every person they see. It’s corny as hell, reading about the anger in whoeverthefuck’s eyes and the complicated look in someone else’s like. Give it a fucking break.

Honestly, the other characters are pretty irrelevant, and are either red herrings (Edward Fosca) or mostly irrelevant (Sangha, Clarissa, the other Maidens) or supposedly relevant but still end up being pretty irrelevant (Sebastian, who is, as the youth say, problematic, but also too romanticized initially for me to ever believe in him).

It’s easier to be lenient with this book if you came in expecting a digestible thriller, but if you were expecting a dark academia like I unfortunately did… expect to be disappointed.

#the maidens #alex michaelides #i read a book after a billion years mother be proud of me

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strqyr · 2 years

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since cinder and winter share some similarities in their journeys to becoming maidens—mainly that they were both promised maiden powers and that forcing the transfer was always on the table — i wonder if something similar is going to be the case with raven and whoever the summer maiden will be.

because i can see the potential there; raven's method of avoiding getting involved is running away, the tribe changing location every now and then to stay hidden; meanwhile, summer's lesson is "don't view the world at a distance — take an active part in it and the events around you", which could mean that instead of moving from one place to another to stay hidden, the summer maiden is staying in one place, practically hiding in plain sight.

i mean, who would suspect your friendly neighbor who has lived there for who know how long and stays out of trouble, when the maidens have been characterized as the type who journey around remnant, alone?

#rwby #the maidens #...anyway #this is how starr being the summer maiden can still win lmao ✨#also vacuo is the kingdom of dorothy #dorothy = home #i have more but my brain refuses to elaborate but hopefully you get the gist

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readingoals · 1 year

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Absolutely hated this book. It just wasn't good. Full thoughts under the cut for length.

I didn't like any of the characters, even the ones I assume I was meant to. I understand the MC was a therapist but she felt less like a person and more like a way for the author to info dump about all the therapy terms he knows. She just wanders around tripping over clues (and manhandling evidence!!) and ruining the flow with paragraphs of psych bullshit. Also every man that met her seemed to be in love with her which really detracts from what little character she has. It felt like another male writer trying to write a ~strong female character~ and instead writing a caricature of a woman they personally want to fuck.

And she wasn't the only one. None of the characters were particularly well written or believable. In fact nothing in this book was well written. References to classic literature and greek mythology felt shoe horned in which is an incredible feat when they were mentioned on like every page. And don't get me started on the big reveal. The motive is ridiculous and the whole murder plot really made no sense. And thats like the number one thing a mystery/thriller novel should get right!! It really felt like the author decided to add a ~twist~ just to shock the audience with little to no thought about whether or not it actually made sense.

Overall just a pretty weak attempt at a thriller. Whole subplots just fizzle out, the pacing is frustratingly slow for most of it and the characters are entirely forgettable. Honestly it's been about a month since I read it and most of what I remember is just how frustrating it was to read. It probably would have been smarter to DNF it but I had hopes that the final reveal would make it all worth while. Unfortunately it just made it more of a disappointment.

#booklr #the maidens #alex michaelides #read in 2023 #brigid speaks #book update #i've seen this book get so many 5 star reviews and i don't understand it #did i get a misprint of a first draft?

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stratosvere · 5 months

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I hold it true, whate'er befall;

I feel it, when I sorrow most;

'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

#the maidens #alex michaelides #books

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noveltyrecs · 2 years

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Not to be dramatic, but if you loved The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, I'm begging you, PLEASE DON'T READ THE MAIDENS. IT'S AWFUL. SAVE YOURSELF.

#books #literature #alex michaelides #the silent patient #dark academia #the maidens

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megdocx · 7 months

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Spoilers ahead as I just finished The Maidens

HEY WHAT THE FUCK?

So from a technical standpoint this book is not written well. The sentences, paragraphs and dialogue are simplistic for something recommend as a dark-academia-esque psych thriller. The worldbuildup is ham-fisted and easy-reader.

The main character herself just isn’t developed well. It doesnt seem as if the author did a ton of meaningful research into being a therapist and threw around a lot of buzzwords. A therapist wouldn’t leave their client bleeding outside their office. A therapist wouldn’t push away their adopted child who was raped by their spouse

Which brings me to my last and biggest problem: the incest. I love a good red herring! I love a good double-red herring and this absolutely could have been spun better. Maybe Zoe held some grudge against Tara, or maybe Zoe was enraptured by Professor Fosca etc. Instead, Zoe is doing all of this at the behest of her deceased uncle/adoptive father, who she had a romantic and (implied) sexual relationship.

The ending was so….bad. I just can’t think of another synonym. I’m so upset.

#read with meg #read with me #the maidens #book review #bookblr #book blogging

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