A Review: The Nanny Diaries

Title: The Nanny Diaries
Author: Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
Category: Chick lit / Fiction
Publication Date: 3/18/2003
Publisher:  St. Martin's Griffin
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 307
ISBN# 0312291639

 (ISBN13: 9780312291631)

Wanted:  One young woman to take care of four-year-old boy. Must be cheerful, enthusiastic and selfless—bordering on masochistic. Must relish sixteen-hour shifts with a deliberately nap-deprived preschooler. Must love getting thrown up on, literally and figuratively, by everyone in his family. Must enjoy the delicious anticipation of ridiculously erratic pay. Mostly, must love being treated like fungus found growing out of employers Hermès bag. Those who take it personally need not apply.

Who wouldn’t want this job? Struggling to graduate from NYU and afford her microscopic studio apartment, Nanny takes a position caring for the only son of the wealthy X family. She rapidly learns the insane amount of juggling involved to ensure that a Park Avenue wife who doesn’t work, cook, clean, or raise her own child has a smooth day.

When the Xs marriage begins to disintegrate, Nanny ends up involved way beyond the bounds of human decency or good taste. Her tenure with the X family becomes a nearly impossible mission to maintain the mental health of their four-year-old, her own integrity and, most importantly, her sense of humor. Over nine tense months, Mrs. X and Nanny perform the age-old dance of decorum and power as they test the limits of modern-day servitude. 

My Review:

I started reading this book because of a book club I followed on facebook. May not have if not for that.
Not to say that it was not good, because it was. But is not one that is right up my alley per-say.With that being said here is my review.

Some of the interviews the Nanny went on in the first part of the book would have made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I love kids, but not sure that I could be a nanny that way. Then for her to be in the park and the little boy she meets by chance ends up being the one she becomes a nanny to.

The Nanny character I felt was good, but for me she had a lot of self image issues to deal with besides caring for the child, not standing up for herself being just one of them. There is being respectful then there
is being ran over. Just saying. I found myself screaming at her and then at times feeling sorry for her.

As for the the family, the X's, well I knew from the meeting them I would want to set them down and give them a good talking to.... laughing here of course. Being a grandma and reading this, I wanted to take the little boy (Grayer) at times and love him to death..... then at times look at him and say "THAT IS ENOUGH!!!" An by the way, I love his name, Grayer... would never have thought about that for a name.
 I love the fact though of how Nanny handled him. That was being a great nanny.The book did show how much she loved him and put him first instead of herself or just leaving because it was just a job..


I would have to say my favorite part would have to be where she, the nanny, take him on a play date later in the book, to a little  boy whose mommy is, well lets just say "Out There"..   The boys end up having a lot of fun and little X got out of his own comfort zone...

As for the guy upstairs that the nanny becomes friends with and little X likes, I liked him as well. He was there for the nanny most of the time and played a great part in the book. Will not get into some of the others in the book except to say, Mom needed some major help... and Dad needed to be smacked in my opinion.. I know it is a book, but when I get into a book and I feel like a part of it.. I want to actually do just what I think.......

So for my rating, as I said in the beginning, probably would not have pick this book up had it not been for the book club. But since I did, I read it in ten days time and can say it was a good book. I wanted to see how Nanny was going to handle the next issues. In my opinion she did more than what is in a NANNY'S Job description to do. But there were some foul language and for that reason my rating for this book is:

Four Clock Rating