The Maid by Nita Prose
I devoured this book in a day, engrossed in its pages until the very last one. It tells the story of Molly. A young girl who works as a maid at a grand hotel, she is extremely efficient and good at her job and she loves it. However, Molly isn’t like other people, she is different, personally I think Molly is on the spectrum and this is why I am somewhat divided on my opinion of her and the way her character is portrayed. She takes things said literally, doesn’t understand or see social cues or expressions and she doesn’t display emotions like others.
Now this all put together makes Molly rather naïve and how she becomes embroiled in a murder of a man whom she finds dead in his room. Suddenly the finger is pointed at Molly. I can see how she is manipulated and led to believe certain people are good, but what I didn’t like or agree with was the implication that Molly was extremely stupid, that she never noticed the true intent of the most obvious things or people in front of her, she was portrayed as quite simple. When in actual fact, people on the spectrum tend to be extremely intelligent, easily manipulated yes, but a clueless fool, no!
Later on Molly does this complete turnaround where she is now someone with a different side entirely, someone who can’t be fooled and is strong and brave and outspoken. How are we supposed to just accept that one minute she is a deluded fool and the next she is auditioning to be the fourth Charlies Angel.
Overall I enjoyed the plot and the outcome, the characters where likeable and I did like Molly immensely. I just didn’t like the inaccurate and over the top characteristics of a young girl who may be on the spectrum, who is different and sees the world differently, but as she herself said, ‘we are all different, but we are all the same in different ways’.
Submitted by Stephanie
