Melissa (Semi Hiatus Until After the Holidays)'s Reviews > The Housekeeper

Meh. This author has had some good books but this was just not one of them.

Jodi is a 40-something married mom of two young children. She's a successful realtor and her husband is a writer who wrote one moderately successful book years ago and has been struggling to repeat that success while Jodi supports their family. Jodi's mom has Parkinson's disease and has been going downhill recently, and her elderly father is having difficulty caring for her. Jodi, with the "help" of her older sister Tracy, ends up hiring Elyse, a sixtyish woman with impeccable references, to be the live in housekeeper to care for their mother. At first, things go well, but then things begin to change.

This is a very predictable story with unlikable characters. Every single male character is horrific--misogynistic gaslighting awful people. Tracy is in her 40s and has no job, is sponging off of her parents who think she can do no wrong. Jodi is a massive doormat who just takes the abuse of her father and her husband and made me want to sit her down and give her a serious talking-to. I mean, when her husband misses her mom's memorial service to go to a "writer's conference" that would have been the last straw for me. And all of his whining and complaining about how much she was working when he had NO JOB. It's honestly no wonder she loved and fell for everything Elyse was dishing out, she was so starved for love and attention.

I powered through to hope for some redemption at the end, but was left rolling my eyes at the ridiculous conclusion. This is honestly just a silly book and I cannot for the life of me understand how it gets such high ratings.

I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book, all opinions are my own.