Book Review: The Housemaid is Watching | Freida McFadden

This is a spoiler-free review of the third book in the trilogy, The Housemaid is Watching. If you’re looking for spoilers and how it ends, head to the spoiler review.

We have reached the conclusion of Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid series, and this was not how I expected the book to end. If you’ve followed any of my other reviews on the series, you’ll know that I liked The Housemaid (though I took small issue with the overlap with another popular book, I felt the last 20% redeemed it), and I really liked The Housemaid’s Secret, which branched off from the source material and delivered a banger of a second half. Now I’ve read the third book that came out this year, The Housemaid is Watching. Did I think it was good? Better than the others? Let’s get into it!

What is The Housemaid is Watching about?

“You must be our new neighbors!” Mrs. Lowell gushes and waves across the picket fence. I clutch my daughter’s hand and smile back: but the second Mrs. Lowell sees my husband a strange expression crosses her face. In that moment I make a promise. We finally have a family home. My past is far, far behind us. And I’ll do anything to keep it that way…

I used to clean other people’s houses—now, I can’t believe this home is actually mine. The charming kitchen, the quiet cul-de-sac, the huge yard where my kids can play. My husband and I saved for years to give our children the life they deserve.

Even though I’m wary of our new neighbor Mrs. Lowell, when she invites us over for dinner it’s our chance to make friends. Her maid opens the door wearing a white apron, her hair in a tight bun. I know exactly what it’s like to be in her shoes.

But her cold stare gives me chills…

The Lowells’ maid isn’t the only strange thing on our street. I’m sure I see a shadowy figure watching us. My husband leaves the house late at night. And when I meet a woman who lives across the way, her words chill me to the bone: Be careful of your neighbors.

Did I make a terrible mistake moving my family here?

I thought I’d left my darkest secrets behind. But could this quiet suburban street be the most dangerous place of all?

What did I think?

I’ll be direct. This book wasn’t good. It wasn’t horrible, but it was boring at best. What a way for such a popular series to go out. With a whimper, as they say. It’s set about fifteen years after the prior book. Millie and Enzo are married with two kids and they’ve moved to Long Island. They can barely afford their house. The kids hate it there. The neighbors are all rich and judgmental. And someone seems to be watching Millie from across the street. Millie spends most of the book ending every chapter with a worry that they should never have moved to Long Island. This gets repetitive and annoying, especially since she is largely responding to quite mundane things. I’m sorry you don’t like your new neighbors, Millie. I really am. But also, please stop spiraling over every little thing…

Millie isn’t the angel of vengeance we’ve grown to love. She’s timid, dull, and doesn’t do anything particularly interesting the entire book. There are things that happen, but those are spoiler territory and I go into those over on my spoiler review. As to what I can say here, I think this is worth the read if you liked the other books in the series, but this is definitely the worst of the three (Freida actually jokes in the book about the third book in a series never being good, so perhaps she knew this sucked and thought she could make a joke since we all clearly paid for it). If you’re new to Freida, this isn’t the one to start on. Her books could be complimented on many things and criticized for many others, but this is the first book of hers that I’ve read and would describe as “boring”. That’s just not her style. It’s short, but not a quick read. I kept putting it down. It took until 60% for anything to happen at all, and then until 75% before we got the semblance of a twist. The ending was a disappointment, because it just didn’t pack a punch at all. I liked the idea of what Freida wanted this book to be, but this wasn’t the right story. This felt rushed and like chatGPT was asked to write a third book to the series.

I hope others enjoy it more than I did! The second book was by far my favorite of the three, so I’d make sure to read The Housemaid’s Secret. Worth reading them all, though, if you’re committed or if you just want easy reads. Just no the last one didn’t pack the same power as the others. Check out my spoiler reviews of all three over on my spoiler-hub.