Hi angels, it is Olivia Ponton and
welcome back to Booked and Busy
This is my podcast for the girlies where we
deep dive the books that confuse us, haunt us, and sometimes trap us into very suspicious
suburban mansions
Today we're stepping into the world of The Housemaid by Freida McFadden.
Talk about a book that had its claws stuck into me
It's a psychological thriller, that's for one.
Number two, there's a lot of interesting power dynamics which we love to talk about on this show.
And transparently, this book had me questioning if I should be scared in my own home
So today,
we're going to break the episode into three sections
Chapter, which is the book, scene, which
is the movie, and the third is the reality check, where we compare the book to the movie
So, grab
a coffee, lock your door, and let's step into the world of the Winchester House
Really quick, we
are going to do the beverage of the day
If you've watched the movie, you know the scene where Millie
and Andrew are on their first quote unquote date in New York City, and they were drinking martinis
with a little lemon twist the entire night
So, that's what we have today
Cheers
The next thing
I want to point out is both in the book and the movie, but when Millie shows up for her first
interview, she wears humongous glasses to quote unquote play the part
And I thought I would wear
one of my favorite ones
Let's start off with deep diving the book because Freda McFaten's writing
style, it genuinely felt like she was whispering secrets into my ear the entire time I was reading.
Everything feels intimate, invasive, and honestly immediate
I felt like things were happening one
after the other
Every time I turned the page, I was like, "What is going on?" Okay, let's start
off with all the characters we have
Number one, Millie
She's the unreliable survivor
She's
fresh out of prison and in my opinion that makes her desperate for stability
In the beginning of
the book, she's currently living in her car and like I said, she's desperate to get a job
She's
hyper aware and observant, but on the contrary, she's also incredibly naive
Her past becomes her
armor and her biggest vulnerability
Millie went to jail for murder
It's her vulnerability because
no one wants to hire her because she went to jail, but it's also her armor at the end of the
book, which spoiler, it ends up helping her with taking down Andrew
In the beginning of
the book, it's pretty much immediate discomfort, but we'll talk about that later with Nina
Now,
we have Nina Winchester
She's the very classic women in the perfect house
She is a genius in my
eyes
The deeprooted things that she had to plan out and act so that Andrew would fall in love with
Millie was impeccable
Her behavior was one very questionable thing to me
The amount of aggression
she put out into the world, specifically in front of her child, was shocking to say the least
Nina
was the most emotionally manipulative character I have ever read
I mean, it was classic 101.
The up and downs of the roller coaster that the husband was put through
In the first half of
the book, you genuinely feel bad for him. and she is the CEO of performative perfectionism
The way
that her hair is always looking good, the friend groups that she has, she's constantly looking her
absolute best
And we find out that's because of Andrew
But the next character we have is Andrew
Winchester
He is the epitome of a quiet storm. Quiet, calm storm
He is this charming facade and
a deeply unsettling calm
When I was reading it, I genuinely thought he was the good guy, but I
was like, he's almost too good
The surrounding characters in the book genuinely applauded
him for putting up with such a nut job
But I think something to point out is his emotional
detachments he has towards Nina's freakouts
Like he was used to them by now
That's what I thought
of them at least
He soothes Nina in such a way that is almost a little creepy, but then at the
end of it he's like, "Oh, and you have time to get your hair done, too." I've literally never
heard a man say that once
The next character I would say is the house because I think the house
plays a character
It's extremely cluttered but very curated
The house being clean one day
and disgusting and dirty the next is a huge point of symbolism in my opinion
There's closed
doors
There's locked spaces
The attic upstairs. Hello
In the movie it literally says that Andrew
designed the house himself and it's like oh that makes sense
I think throughout the book we also
got this like eerie tension that Millie was being watched and at first I thought that was from Nina
or even Enzo
I think another thing to point out is how many times Millie asked for a key in the
book
I think it was like two or three times. I'm sorry if you're a living nanny and you have
to ask that more than three times
I'd be like, "This is getting a little sus
Why don't they want
to give me a key to a door that is locked from the outside? In your bedroom, it is locked from the
outside
So, they can lock you inside your room, but you can't lock it from the inside." Weird,
right? Now, we're going to talk about a few of the narrative turning points
Number one is when
Nina's kindness switched up
At the beginning of the book, she seemed naive and eager to hire
Millie, and then the next day, she was accusing her of stealing her PTA notes
I think this is
manipulation uh 101, to be honest
The next one is how Nina's treatment towards Millie worsened
throughout the entire book
She starts by giving Millie these incredibly unrealistic tasks
At
first, Nina micromanages Millie in a way that is just annoying, but not dangerous
She would
tell her to clean one thing and then 20 minutes later would ask her, "Why did you clean that?" She
would tell her to have dinner ready at 6:00 p.m. and then when it came around, she would get mad
at her for having dinner ready so early
Or even the closet scene in the book where she would have
Millie organize everything and then got frustrated at her for moving everything around
That would
frustrate me
The inconsistency was the first psychological weapon
The next thing is that she
started snapping at the most irrational things. She yells at Millie for folding the towels the
wrong way and getting mad at Millie for using the wrong mug and even accusing Millie in front of
people for trying to embarrass her when Millie was just following the instructions
She would try to
publicly scold Millie quite often
She would snap at Millie telling her to hurry up or try not
to ruin anything
And she would be overcorrect Millie's actions
She scolds her for bringing out
the wrong dish, taking too long to serve food, and like I said, not listening for when Millie
listens to the exact instructions
Because at the end of the day, Millie just wants this job.
She needs something to tell her parol officer that she's doing
She needs a place to live because
she's living out of her car
So the entire first half of the book, all Millie wants to do is a
good job
So when she's constantly getting told, you're doing this wrong, you're you're doing that
wrong, she's genuinely scared that she is going to use this
And then Nina even takes it a step
further and dangles her job in front of Millie like playing with a cat and a cat toy
It was not
fair
I got really frustrated at it
Going back about the public scolding situation, the guests
were always extremely uncomfortable during these things
I think at first the guests were kind of
just like, "Oh yeah, it's so hard to find reliable help around here." But then after a certain
point, it was getting too far
The next thing that's like textbook manipulation is she starts
rewriting things and blames Millie for things that (a) didn't happen or (b) Millie did not do.
Textbook gaslighting
The first example is the sleepover situation
She calls Millie and she's
like, "Hey, pick Cece up from ballet." That's it. Millie's freaking out
She's at the grocery store.
She's like, "I don't know what ballet studio she goes to
I don't know where it is
I don't know
when." After Millie goes to like five different locations, she eventually finds the ballet place.
When she arrives, girls are just finishing and she's like, "Hey, CeCe, I'm ready to pick you
up." And Cece's like, "I'm having a sleepover at my friend's house
Why would you come here
and pick me up if I'm having a sleepover?" And Millie's freaking out because she's like, "Your
mother called me and told me to pick you up
Like, I need to take you home." So, the other mother
that they were having this sleepover with calls Nina and is like, "Hey, I thought we were having a
sleepover." And they ended up having a sleepover. So, Millie did all that work for no reason.
Again, classic textbook gaslighting
This is simultaneously making Millie second guess if
maybe she didn't call her and you know she's thinking that she's going a little crazy
Nah
throughout the book was also trying to blame Millie for moving things that Millie never thought
she moved
Perfect example, the PTA notes
This was at more of the beginning part of the book
The
house was an absolute mess when Millie arrived
So her first job was to completely clean everything.
After a full day of that she cleans
The following morning when Millie comes downstairs, Nina is
trashing everything
And when I mean trashing, like milk being thrown on the floor, eggs are
everywhere, plates are being shattered, trash is being dumped out, Nina is convinced that Millie
moved her PTA papers and threw them away
Andrew comes rushing in, is picking her up off the floor,
and is trying to calm her down
Nina is just in absolute shambles
He ends up soothing her, which
we'll talk about this a little bit more
It was like an odd soothing way and then looks at her
at the end and tells her that she has time before her PTA meeting to get her roots done of her
hair
What it was just things that when I was reading I was like this just doesn't make sense.
She got upset with Millie for apparently moving a vase for misfolding clothing and then also got
upset for something on the counter being moved. And when Millie would insist that she didn't move
things or didn't say things or didn't do things, Nina would always respond with, "Don't lie to
me
I know what I saw
I know what I did
And then like I was talking about earlier, this is
continuously making Millie question whether she did things or not
The next thing is that Nah
started invading Millie's privacy like crazy. You know, she has her bedroom
I would assume that
Nenah wouldn't go in it, but Nina started moving things around Millie's bedroom
Really subtle, but
like books over here, a cup over there
She would also start questioning Millie about her errands
or meetings that she had to do
Keeping in mind, Millie was still on parole
So, she had her parole
meeting, I think it was every Saturday
And when Millie decided to excuse herself and to go to
her meeting, even though Nina did not know it, she was going to a parole meeting, Millie would
just say it was something important she had to go and do
Nina would tell Millie that she couldn't
take the day off and they had so much they had to get done
But Millie insisted that she could not
miss the meeting
And then Andrew came downstairs. It was a whole thing
But then Millie was allowed
to go
She would establish this sense of dominance in every single room, including Millie's
Example,
the lock outside of the door
Another thing that I thought was interesting is that she would
weaponize Millie's past
She would always give hints that she knew where Millie came from, but
it was just like this empty, unsaid thing that was between them two
Nina would also hint numerous
times that Millie needed to behave to keep her job
And this would make Millie feel like she knew
that Nina was on to her, that she was on parole, that she needs this job to stay out of jail
My
next red flag is the attic
This is the reveal that changes absolutely everything in this story.
At first, we just think the attic is where Millie is going to be living
Even though in the house
there was numerous extra bedrooms that she could have stayed in, they insisted that she'd lived in
the attic
The attic changes the way that we view Nina
We think she's this psychopath who's off
her medication and is in and out of psych words when we find out that she's not the insane one
Andrew is
We find out why Andrew acts the way that he does, making sure Nina always has time
to get her roots done, that she acts like the perfect wife that he wants
And this is why Nina
was so angry with Millie for losing the PTA notes, because that meant that Nina didn't have time
to go get her full hair appointment done. and she knew that if she didn't have time to get her
roots done, she was going to be sent up into the attic to be tortured
Now, going to the second
part of the book, the attic is also a sign of symbolism for Millie and how she has to step into
the role of a survival strategist
I thought it was pretty crazy in the movie, which we'll talk
about later, how when Millie first went over for the introduction interview, they were eating a
charcuterie board and there was a knife on the table
When Millie leaves, we see that Nina is
still holding that same knife
And then all the way through the movie, we see that the knife that
Nina left Millie is that same knife that they had on the sher board
The next thing we're going into
is themes throughout the book
Identity
This is the biggest one with Millie
She had a whole
other life to her that she was so naive that everyone was going to just turn a blind eye to
We
have Millie the housemmaid and we have Millie the survivor
Millie the housemmaid is very calm, very
quiet, just wanting to get her job done, wanting a place to live, just very simple
And then we
have Millie, the survivor, who's strategic, distrustful, always scanning for danger, and
needing a stable job because she's on probation, and before this job, she was living in her car.
The book even asks, "Does survival require you to reinvent yourself or hide the part of yourself
that already knows how to survive?" I liked how in the book, it was cut up into two sections
There
was part one, which was from Millie's perspective, and part two's, which was from Nina's perspective.
The whole first part, I thought Nina was the bad guy
Then switch, we find out Andrew is a
raging psycho crazy person
And from the book perspective, he gets what Millie thinks he
deserves at the end
Andrew does not know that Millie was in jail for murder
Nina knows that and
is going to use that to her advantage because she knows that Millie is capable of that
When Nina
figures out that Andrew and Millie were having an affair, it was the perfect opportunity for Nina to
leave
She left and that was the end of part one. And we find out that she's the happiest version of
herself
She's so excited that she got away from this terrible, terrible man
And then we see the
pipeline that Millie and Andrew go down
And it's great
It's roses
It's dinners in New York City.
It's a very loving relationship until Millie does the first wrong thing
And in the movie, it was
breaking his mother's china
She was sent up to the attic to help find something
And then he
locked her in there
In the book, he made her put a stack of books on her stomach for 3 hours
straight
Something about that is just a little peculiar to me
Now, we're going to walk through
another hallway in the Winchester home, and we're going to open the door of all things movie
related
I had the absolute honor of watching the movie before it came out
I watched it in my
apartment on my couch in absolute shambles
This was the first book adaptation movie that I have
watched that I thought was better than the book. If there was going to be a book that was going to
turn into movie, this was going to be it
I think it was the perfect length for a movie and the
movie was able to capture the essence
Honestly, I was a little worried about the cast
I thought
it was a little weird
Like Sydney Sweeney, I didn't think it made sense until I watched the
movie
She played the character perfectly
The movie gave us something that the book couldn't,
which was body language, the weird silences, the weird stares from Enzo
I personally loved
Nina on screen because Nina was played by Amanda Seyfried
In the book, I felt like she was
more internally crazy, but in the movie, she was very outwardly loud and screaming and
breaking things and throwing things everywhere. And I felt like Andrew really captured the essence
of like the calm before a storm
He was weirdly calm
We didn't know he was crazy until that very
first scene where Millie woke up in the attic
In saying that he drugs them and puts in the addict
and that's how she woke up
I would be terrified. A few things that I want to talk about from book
versus movie that were different
In the book, it was way more gory than I was going to expect
A
lot of blood
The first time Andrew had Millie in the attic, she had to cut 21 lines in her stomach
with the mother's china that she accidentally broke because Enzo was staring at her
So, it was
just really bloody and quite gross
And in the book, there was pepper spray that Nina left her.
In the movie, that didn't happen
It was just the knife
And when Andrew came in, Millie stabbed him
in the neck
And Nina actually re-showed up to the house in the middle of this whole process, which I
don't feel like happened in the way that I thought it was going to when I was reading the book
In
the movie, Andrew ends up chasing them throughout the house and Nina was sitting in the upstairs
living room when Millie came out of nowhere and pushed him down the stairs and it was quite gross.
I'm going to be honest
I had to kind of do one of these
What's going on? So, I have a few questions
for you guys
Which ending felt more satisfying? because for me I think the book ending felt a
little bit more satisfying but the movie was more shocking and more believable and more twisted
and crazy and dark
So my final verdict is I do personally love the movie better just because I
loved seeing everything so visual and I think the characters played an incredible job in this
I
also think the way that the movie was edited and filmed in the house and the daughter's dollhouse
in the movie was just insane because we saw in the movie how they would sit at the table and she
would move the mother around in the house and one time when the mother was gone for two nights, the
daughter put her up in the attic and Millie was like, "Hm, that's weird
That's my room." Okay,
Booked and Busy, I want to know your opinion
Do you like the book or the movie better? And that
is a wrap on episode 4 of Booked and Busy
And thank you so much for stopping inside of the
Winchester's house with me
The new episode is after the holidays, so please stay safe and
have a beautiful Christmas
I love you guys
Bye. [Music] [Music]
