The Housemaid by Freida McFadden

Andrew & Nina Winchester, and 9 yo daughter Cece. Nina hires a maid, Millie. Random gardener outside, Enzo, is from Cicily. 

I started skimming this book after about 80 pages. Pretty much skimmed p.80 until the last 10-15 pages, which I read fully (below are the reasons for this). Overall, I give this book 2 stars. I'll never read McFadden again. 

McFadden's writing is not great. Way too many cliches (p.15 "my pity party", p.28, "I.. don't lose my lunch", "money to burn", p.135 "exercise in futility"). Cliched writing is lazy writing. Period. 

There's also way too much inner dialogue which amounts to "telling" the reader, versus "showing" us). Cardinal rule: Show, don't tell. It gets extremely tedious. I presume this extra "telling" is meant to pad the manuscript -- get it above 300 page count so that the publisher can charge more for the book. That's where we're at now in the publishing world; cliched writing, with way too much "telling," and extraneous fluff for the purpose of page count. 

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

Don't read further unless you've read this book. 

Millie was in prison because ... she ended up in boarding school because she slashed her teacher's tires, he threatened to fail her unless she let him "feel her up" (Millie's words). And her parents didn't believe her. At the boarding school, she found her roommate being raped and killed the guy with a paperweight (hit repeatedly cause he was a big guy). Pleaded to manslaughter, served 10 yrs. 

Nina is believed to be insane rather than a victim. Andrew (Andy) locked her in attic, when he let her out, he drugged her, she fell asleep...and awoke to hear water running in her bathroom. She saw texts from Andy, Are you ok? Are you and Cece ok? Nina crawls to bathroom, sees Cece propped up in tub, water filling up...almost to her chin, just then police come in. ---- I don't understand why no one believes Nina's story. She has no record of mental illness. She has no illness. Still, she's locked away. 

In the end, Millie turns out to have a dark side. A side that's capable of...torture. This is an odd way to wrap up this story. Millie has no background of violence other than an act of defense against a rapist. ...whatever.