Book notes: The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

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The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

Synopsis:

““Welcome to the family,” Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I’ll soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own….

Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband, Andrew, seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out…and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: The Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of….” -Audible

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Opening thoughts:

I saw this book while browsing recommended reads under thrillers, and it had good reviews. I don’t know what to expect but I’m curious to get into this genre more.

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Key notes:

Part 1: 3 Months Earlier

Chapter 1: Millie

• She applied for a maid job at a rich white woman’s house but she got creepy vibes from the place. However, she really wanted and needed the live-in job

Chapter 2

• She gets offered the job but suspects Mrs. Winchester didn’t do a thorough background check on her because she would have seen her 10-year prison record

Chapter 3

• She finds her way to her new room in the attic, but asks about why the door locks from the outside. She also translates the Italian word the landscaper said to her earlier which meant “danger” 

Chapter 4

• Nina and Cecilia blamed Millie for not knowing that Cecilia had a peanut allergy which was very strange

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

• Millie suspects that something changed with Nina, and Andy is fully aware of Nina’s crazy outbursts 

Reader’s note: It’s pretty irritating how Nina keeps gaslighting Millie and then Millie just takes it. It’s also frustrating how she feels the need to lie to Nina and it gets her further in trouble. Nina is crazy and Millie is just stupid

Chapter 9

• Andrew gives Millie the rundown on Cecilia’s spoiled tastes

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

• On her way to pick up Cecilia last minute, she learned from the other mothers that Nina is actually crazy

Chapter 12

Reader’s note: It’s getting even more irritating because of how Millie just takes Nina’s abuse and gaslighting without speaking up, even when Nina is blatantly lying

• Millie finds a ton of anti-psychotic, bipolar, and other disorder medications for Nina in the medicine cabinet

Reader’s note: Wow, big surprise.

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

• Millie meets with her parole officer and updates her
• Nina catches Millie and Andrew watching TV together accidentally at 1am

Chapter 15

• She finds out Cecilia isn’t Andrew’s biological child. She was a baby when he and Nina met

Chapter 16

• The PTA women who came over were just as terrible and gossipy as Nina, and they also gossiped loudly about her when she left and Millie was still there

Chapter 17

• Nina and Andrew came back from their fertility specialist appointment with not good news and they were both devastated

Chapter 18

Reader’s note: Again, I’m very irritated at Millie for putting up with all this verbal and emotional abuse. She picks the wrong battles and doesn’t pick the right ones. And then it gets worse when she apologizes after being abused

Chapter 19

• She tries to seduce Enzo but fails embarrassingly and then he warns her again of Nina and danger

Chapter 20

• She heard from another housekeeper Amanda that Nina has been in a psych ward for way back when she tried to kill Cecilia when she was a baby and tried to kill herself 

Chapter 21

• Andrew reveals that the box package he got from his mom was full of baby stuff which made him depressed because of their situation

Reader’s note: It’s so frustrating again how Millie can’t control her emotions and growing feelings towards Andrew. She’s setting herself up for a terrible situation because she has no emotional control over herself. She’s definitely going to get what’s coming to her

Chapter 22

• Nina pulled another psycho moment where she changed her plans last minute then blamed Millie. Nina threatened to take the mistake out of her paycheck, which made no sense

Chapter 23

• Andrew confesses that he wasn’t able to get a refund for the broadway tickets and hotel, so he suggested they go together

Chapter 24

• She wears one of the white cocktail dresses she got from Nina and then they head to the show

Chapter 25

• After the show they have dinner at a French restaurant

Chapter 26

• They both end up drunk from wine in the taxi and end up kissing and eventually sleeping together

Chapter 27

• The next morning they agree it was a great night but it can’t happen again and they won’t speak of it

Chapter 28

• Andrew pays Enzo to take care of the trash problem but he’s hesitant. Andrew mentions he gets weird vibes from Enzo

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

• Nina revealed she knew about Millie’s prison history during dinner in front of Andrew

Chapter 31

• She gets stopped by a grocery security for alleged potential shoplifting and suspects it was Nina

Chapter 32

• She and Andrew share another kiss at night outside when she found him drinking alone

Chapter 33

• Andrew confesses to Nina that he doesn’t love her anymore and that he wants her to leave. He also confesses he has feelings for Millie

Chapter 34

• Andrew fires Enzo but then Enzo privately warns Millie in perfect English that she’s in danger from Nina still 

Chapter 35

• She finally realized that Nina probably put a location tracker app on the phone she gave Millie

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Part 2

Chapter 38

• Nina recounts the first time meeting Andrew when she just had Cecilia and was working at his company

Chapter 39

• Nina recounts how Andy was sadistic and locked Nina in the attic a few months into their marriage

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

• Andrew locked Nina in the attic and made her pluck 100 hairs off her head as a punishment before he’d let her out

Chapter 42

• She woke up in time to save Cecilia but was framed for trying to drown her daughter and kill herself

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

• Andy locks her in the attic again

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

• Nina tells Enzo everything but tells him not to do anything

Chapter 48

• Nina almost escapes but Andy finds out 

Chapter 49

• Nina hires Millie as her replacement and treats her terribly on purpose so that them two can fall in love under the right circumstances
• She successfully orchestrated them going to Manhattan and falling in love

Chapter 50

Part 3

Chapter 51

• He locks Millie in the attic for not cleaning up after herself and she can’t believe he’s also crazy

Chapter 52

• He forces her to balance heavy books on her stomach for 3 hours, twice, before he lets her out

Chapter 53

• Nina’s investigation on Millie revealed she had a violent history and tendency. She not only hired Millie as her replacement, but also to kill Andrew

Chapter 54

• Millie’s plan to pepper spray Andrew, take his phone, and lock him in the room is successful. Then she gets revenge on him by giving him the same treatment he gave her

Reader’s note: This is so satisfying, imagining Millie get sweet revenge and Andrew having to go through it

Chapter 55

Reader’s note: It’s so satisfying how he asks for water and she’s like “nahh, maybe you should leave more water for the next girl so you’ll have some for yourself.” Boom.

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

• Millie makes Andrew pull out one of his teeth with pliers

Chapter 58

• Nina comes back to help Millie

Chapter 59

• Nina tells Millie to leave and Nina will take the blame for Andrew’s death. Nina needed Millie to kill him bc she knew she couldn’t do it herself 

Chapter 60

• The detective who checked out the house happened to be the father of Andrew’s former fiancée, and he suspected Andrew was a bad man

Chapter 61

• Evelyn, Andrew’s mom, subtly revealed that her discipline style for Andrew growing up probably caused him to turn out so sadistic. She told Nina she was glad Nina taught Andy a lesson about dental hygiene

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Closing thoughts:

Wow. I can honestly say that I was surprised by the plot twists, but it totally makes sense after knowing what happens. And after getting through the end of the story, I can say that I actually enjoyed it.

During the first part, I was clearly annoyed at Millie for her people-pleasing tendencies and her inability to stand up for herself or at least know when to leave. What’s worse, it was irritating seeing Millie set herself up for a bad situation when she started to like Andrew. I get that he was written as a very handsome, attractive, and charming person. Basically he’s a “perfect guy” who is easy to fall for but he has a psycho wife. Then in the second part, you find out that Nina is actually putting on an act because Andrew is clearly the psycho one. Then finally in the last act, it was so satisfying to have Millie give Andrew a taste of his own medicine and finally kill him. But it sucks that Nina had to set Millie up like a pawn and go through that knowing full well what he was capable of. But I guess it worked out in the end.

Overall, it was a very entertaining book, despite being hard to read in the first half or so. But the second half definitely redeemed itself. I think fans of this genre would definitely enjoy it, though I personally don’t think it’s in my top 10 fiction books of all time.

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One Takeaway / Putting into practice:

This one is easy:

• Don’t fall for seemingly “perfect” guys. They’re likely hiding a dark secret, like being a serial killer or being Batman or something

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Nutshell:

Millie, fresh from serving a 10-year prison sentence, begins a new life as a housemaid for a rich couple. Unfortunately, it seems everyone in the house has their own dark secrets.

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Similar books:

• The Maid by Nita Prose
• Artemis by Andy Weir
• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles
• Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

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Rating:

3/5

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