Is The Housekeeper'S Diary Worth Reading? Review

Question

Saw some mixed feedback about this domestic fiction novel's pacing and ending. Anyone else have strong emotional reactions after finishing The Housekeeper's Diary?

Sabrina Candramaya Gayatri · Answer

If you like steamy workplace romances with an imbalance of power and lots of forbidden tension then this book is worth a read. As a workplace romance it delivers on the classic topic of professional boundaries being crossed and becoming an obsession of a more personal nature. That particular employer/employee (staff) scenario can be played out in many ways. This book takes a different view on the billionaire hires a woman premise in ‘An affair with my billionaire boss (seducing his maid)’ where the boss actively pursues his new employee and gets embroiled in a web of blackmail and public scandal. It’s a very different take on the premise and makes for a very chaotic and steamy read from the first chapter onwards.

Ruby · Answer

Understated but devastating. I walked into this one expecting a light, amiable mystery and got hit with a proverbial sledgehammer of quiet class and power commentary. The housekeeper in the story has a unique voice and even her clipped sentences convey her strict exterior, but the occasional lapse into emotion is just the tiniest crack in her facade. And then there's the use of household items as metaphor — a cracked teapot here, a locked drawer there. It's a relatively short story that packs a considerable punch and lingers long after you finish reading it.

Rhys · Answer

I picked up The Housekeeper’s Diary because of a synopsis which promised a housekeeper to uncover secrets in an aristocratic household. The book first read slowly to me, but after some layers of the family members’ secret lives were uncovered, I was hooked. The boring work of the housekeeper gets woven together with surprising revelations in a highly suspenseful way, which reminded me of Gosford Park but with a more literary and more intimate scope.

My favorite part of the novel was the gray morality of the Housekeeper. She is a very relatable character in a world of nobility where it is typical to give your absolute loyalty to your family and employers. She struggles with her own morality in trying to make ends meet. The ending was surprising in the best way, it left me wondering how I would react in a similar situation. This novel is great for anyone who enjoys character-driven novels with slow development and a rich atmosphere. It is not a fast-paced action novel by any stretch of the imagination, but it is definitely my new favorite.

Xena · Answer

This was a really lovely book which I almost missed. The style is very low-key. It’s a real puzzle and the details all fall into place in a rather sinister way. I found the housekeeper’s struggles with the butler to be quite intriguing. And then there was the scene where she found the torn letter in the fireplace. I literally gasped at that point. It’s one of those books which gets under your skin and makes you look at the most mundane things in a strange light. Now my teapot won’t just be my teapot.

Evelyn · Answer

"The Housekeeper's Diary" is a patient reward for reader. The first half of the book is a carefully detailed sequence of events with all the flowers arranged in perfect order. Then suddenly the flowers are found to be poisoned and the subsequent events are incredible. A large part of the book is presented through the housekeeper’s diary entries. We see only what she chooses to write about. That in itself makes for an intriguing read but also raises many questions about her reliability. My book club had a great discussion about this. Some thought the housekeeper might be manipulating events to get the reaction he wants from others. Others believed that he was powerlessly recording events as they occurred. The book is good for those readers who enjoy reading and then analyzing a narrative similar to “The Remains of the Day” but with a darker twist.

Eleanor · Answer

'The Housekeeper's Diary' by Christi Judd was another great read for me. The prose was good and tight with no extra words, but it managed to create a very atmospheric and often oppressive world. It smelled of polish on the old manor's wood and stone and felt of heavy rules and protocols, most unspoken. I wasn't expecting it to be funny in some places, but it was. The humor was dry and often used to defuse tense situations. Although it wasn't a real thriller, it had plenty of psychological tension to keep me reading. The only criticism that I would offer is that some of the other characters seemed to be somewhat one-dimensional in comparison to the housekeeper and her internal world. But overall, a good read for someone who appreciates a setting as a major character.

Christine Bedford · Answer

A solid three stars from me. The author set up the old manor and its silence beautifully – I could almost smell the dust. The execution wasn’t better than the concept, though, as the plot was pretty predictable once it got going. Hidden pasts, angry/controlling/sob-story Big Society types who seek to take the Protag away from MC and force a separation – it’s all very familiar and a la mode. Most of the secondary characters were however interesting in their own right – but they all served to some degree to facilitate the relationship of the two main characters. It’s a story that will probably satisfy fans of this genre who are running out of good three star books and up to excellent novels in the genre. Just don’t expect it to be groundbreaking in any way.

beth buchen · Answer

A very flat middle section. The first section established the mystery, and the ending of the book was so emotive and beautiful, but in between the heroine spends page after page of similar emotions cleaning rooms, observing the Master, writing in her diary, worrying. I have the feeling that the author has stretched a small novella into a novel by adding so much repetitive atmospheric description. If you can tolerate slow, descriptive writing then you might enjoy this. As it is, I have been stuck in this flat section for what feels like an age, and I wish the author had managed to keep the progression of the story up to the high standard of the opening. The only thing that has kept me reading is the promise of return to the heroine’s growing relationship with the Master, and the description of the rooms and objects that she cleans is certainly vivid. But right now I feel as though I am stuck in a rut, and I am having to read page after page of repetitive description in order to reach a point where there is some actual plot or dialogue.

Amaro · Answer

I loved all the different fan theories that went around while it was being serialized. Many people believed that the housekeeper was a ghost, that the master was the real servant or that there was some sort of magical curse having to do with the roses in the garden. The author kept the mystery wrapped up in a big bow and played it close to his chest so that the community could go wild trying to come up with different scenarios in each new installment of the story. My favorite part was how it all actually played out but it wasn’t as crazy as some of the fan theories. The speculation around the story and even how wrong people were at times actually added to my experience of reading the story. It made me read very closely and really brought out all of the different layers of the story and how full of clues it was. It was a really well-written story and gave the reader a very engaged, even detective-like reading experience.

Olivia Wise · Answer

This book is a great “in-between” read – after finishing a heavy or long series, you need something to fill the gap until you get into your next big series. Although this book does have a fairly complex world, it’s not so complex that it will feel like too much work to keep track of. The main cast of characters is also not so large that you’ll get any of them confused. The biggest thing this book has is very personal and contained emotional stakes, which makes it very easy to read in chunks. While it won’t blow your mind, it will keep you feeling, even if it’s not in a super impressive way. It’s sort of like herbal tea in book form – it warms you up and is really gentle and soothing, the kind of thing you’d read before bed. It’s not a double shot of espresso, but it’s really good at what it does, which is to be a really well written, character focused novel in a very specific and cozy-Gothic niche. Read it with appropriate expectations, and you’ll likely find it very satisfying.

Phyllis Jones · Answer

This is a great title. ‘The Master and the Housekeeper’ or ‘Secrets of the Manor’ wouldn’t quite have captured the book that I read, ‘The Housekeeper’s Diary’ is perfect. Our story is told from the housekeeper’s perspective. We hear her observations and thoughts about the master of the house. She is trying to work out his motives in the various situations that occur and thus we are too. We are not privy to the master’s thoughts in the same way that we are to the housekeeper’s. All we have is her private and biased thoughts about what is going on. Her lack of knowledge, her misinterpretation and her emotions all are there in all their glory. Therefore any review that fails to appreciate that we are reading the housekeeper’s thoughts about the master and that therefore she’s story must of necessity be different from the master’s is missing the point of the book. The reader and the housekeeper are trying to work out the master’s motives from the outside.

Jesa Santiago Tagalog · Answer

What drew me in most though was not the romance. Rather, it was the mystery of the house itself. The hidden rooms, the locked wing of the house, the secrets of the past locked in its very architecture. Every now and then, the housekeeper would stumble upon a secret passage, or long-forgotten portraits in the attic. The central love story was interesting enough, but largely secondary to the Gothic mystery of the estate and its secrets slowly being revealed. The house is a character, and a reluctant and resistant one at that. It takes the housekeeper a long time to get to know it, but eventually it begins to open up to her much as the master of the house has done before her. If you are a fan of novels such as Rebecca, or The Thirteenth Tale where the setting is a character in the novel, then you will enjoy this. The central love story is not really the main focus of the novel, but rather a mere backdrop to the true action which is the slowly-unveiling of the estate's secrets.

oluwtomilayoosuolale · Answer

I have been seeing this book recommended alongside Under the Oak Tree, but they are really two different kinds of stories. Under the Oak Tree is about a person working through trauma and having really intense emotions – loud, explosive ones. The Housekeeper’s Diary is about a quiet, domestic space and the inner struggle going on to maintain that space, a battle in most cases. Rather than relying on magical power or even a more assertive personality type, the heroine in this book wins because she is patient, very detail-oriented and extremely emotionally intelligent. It is a much more subtle kind of fantasy and does not have the same kind of cathartic release of screaming and crying that can be so satisfying in the face of trauma in a story. But if you are looking for that, then this is not the book for you. Instead, this book finds drama in the minute, in the mundane, and can be a really wonderful read after a long stretch of really intense, high-stakes political intrigue or epic fantasy wars.

Is The Housekeeper'S Diary Worth Reading? Review

13 Answers

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