The Housemaid by Freida McFadden has managed to get onto The Greatest Books of All Time site, although it is as low as 16709, nevertheless, it does have an astounding 3,464,056 ratings and 293,265 reviews on Goodreads, with this, we need to add to the ridiculous number…I have about 200k reviews on my blog, I am exaggerating, and even there are too many, they generally avoid the likes of The Housemaid, which is not something I get busy with https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden has managed to get onto The Greatest Books of All Time site, although it is as low as 16709, nevertheless, it does have an astounding 3,464,056 ratings and 293,265 reviews on Goodreads, with this, we need to add to the ridiculous number…I have about 200k reviews on my blog, I am exaggerating, and even there are too many, they generally avoid the likes of The Housemaid, which is not something I get busy with https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html

 

 

6 out of 10

 

Arthur Schopenhauer https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-history-of-philosophy-by-bertrand.html said “One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.

 

In order to read what is good one must make it a condition never to read what is bad; for life is short, and both time and strength limited.”

 

Ergo, we should avoid The Housemaid, notwithstanding the fact that millions of people disagree with this statement, since close to 3.5 million have taken the trouble to rate this on Goodreads, and the average rating there is an incredible

 

-          4.27

 

Yes, this is a thriller, and ‘the novelist has an infinity of choices, He chooses what is to happen, to happens, and in what way he will relate what happens, the picture he constructs is complete on its own terms…when he says this is the story and the whole story we must accept it…perhaps novelists are the only people telling the truth’ concluding hence that the writer is god’

If (probably) more than ten million readers have been happy with this – the figures above are just available on one site, most do not bother with it, indeed, most of those I ask in my realm have not even heard about it…maybe one in ten knew – then there must be value, who am I to take shots at a successful book?

 

However, I take the above quote from According To Mark https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/according-to-mark-by-penelope-lively.html by Penelope Lively and say ‘yes, but the reader is a demi god as well, furthermore, for this space, I benefit from this touch of divinity’

In that ‘my house, my rules’, my blog and notes, I say what I believe, especially given ‘the traffic’ I have, nobody is bothered…well, occasionally, somebody is outraged, mostly for the fact that I see Evil equals MAGA and their Orange Monkey – by the way, I can also say those things, because that creature does it himself, or is it ‘itself’?

 

Over the weekend, this leader of the (ex) free world posted a video with Barack and Michele Obama represented as monkeys, quod erat demonstrandum, the thing that paints itself with Orange and keeps screaming for bananas aka votes he claims were stolen from him in 2022 is closer to the animal kingdom than anybody, he is an animal, and not a thinking one

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’