Customer Reviews

The Good Nanny: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Look at the cover of this one and you may can't really get a sense of the focus, the gist of this book. Is it a horror tale about yet another nanny gone bad? Is it about a nanny who steals the children's hearts, leaving the working parents in second place in their children's hearts?
Well, no, it isn't really about any of those things,although they might be minor points in this book. To me, this book was mainly a morality tale about ambition and where it can lead people and how their lives can get terribly muddled by trying to balance so many things -family life, work, hiring a nanny, wondering if the nanny is a criminal, etc.
I'm not sure why this book hasn't gained more of a readership but it deserves to be read- and discussed. The parents struggle with guilt as they leave their children in charge of the nanny,even though the nanny seems to be about as perfect as a caretaker could be. As the parents become more suspicious, readers can't help but wonder about the nanny as well- and that makes for suspense and tension.

The ending is a bit too pat and unbelievable for my taste but that doesn't offset the strengths of this work. Where is suspicion warranted and when is it merely a projection of guilt and ambivalence? How do high earners cope with loss and change? All of these themes are covered in this small, but not insignificant, book.

Occasionally amusing descriptions of confused upper middle class suburbanites and their conflicted attitudes toward careers and parenting can't salvage this novel. The dialogue (especially that of the children) was awfully stilted, the plot was extremely slight, and the ending was completely predictable. Worst of all, the dust jacket summary gave away (before I even started to read) a very pivotal plot element that wasn't revealed until page 176 of a 270 page book.

I did enjoy this Westchester-based book. It was funny, irreverant, and a fast, summer read. While the husband and wife were fairly believable, some of their actions (like buying a toy gun for their daughter) were a bit of a stretch. It was fast paced and interesting and the details were spot on. What amazed me was the number of typos even by page 20. Where were the editors?

Stuart Cross, pushing 60, is a senior editor for a small New York publisher. He's married to Andie, nearly 30 years his junior and movie critic for the New York Post. They move to the country for the sake of their two girls and hire Louise Washington, the perfect nanny.
Stuart, although he's been in publishing for 30 years, seems to know very little about it. Andie, although she's been a mother for nine years, knows little about that and is plagued by guilt that she's leaving her girls with a stranger to pursue her career.
Various complications ensue, none of which paint the leading characters in a positive light.
The best parts of this book are the author's somewhat amusing, though repetitive, musings about suburban life. But the plot is predictable, the writing terribly pedestrian and the characters thoroughly unlikeable.

In an age where writers are too quickly elevated to a status of excellence undeserved, Ben Cheever quietly continues to produce the finest work of intelligent satire in America. THE GOOD NANNY delves deliciously into the heart of parenting, publishing and paranoia with delectable twists and turns along the way. Cheever revels in the subtle insights which bring characters to life, builds stories to a perfect pitch and offers observations on modern life that are simply unparalleled today. While others catch the headlines - with books like Little Children being anointed as chic suburban drama - there is simply no one producing the sort of satire as Ben Cheever does again in The Good Nanny. His humor is a razor finely honed, the ending of The Good Nanny honest and incomparable, not pandering. What a unique concept - Cheever actually respects the intelligence of his audience! The Good Nanny is a great work not to be missed.

The book was horrible. I found it racist and ignorant. It was actually a boring book, I kept wondering where it was going. It was quite upsetting at the end to think there are no consequences for your actions. Would not waste my time reading it. I am actually happy I took it from the library, and did not pay good money for it.

Oh, yuck! I couldn't wait to finish listening to the cd's as I used this book to fill time on my daily commute. The framework is so bare, I think a skeleton has more going for it. For instance, each chapter heading was from a line at the end of the chapter, word for word. In another part, Stuart takes a bite of food, chews it and swallows. Yeah? Isn't that what you normally do? Why write it? The kids didn't sound right, either. One sounded like a miniature adult and the other like a three year old, although she was suppose to be older.
However, the premise was interesting. With a bit more flesh on this skeleton (and some really good editing?) this would be a very fine book. And thanks for talking a bit about the money side of the book trade too.

This book uses stereotypical characters and cliched settings to create a tragedy of errors in suburbia. The author tackles racism, parenting, literary pretensions, fiscal irresponsibility, artistic ambition, neuroses, competitive spouses, office politics, corporate mergers, and anomie using characters who are no more than shells of real people. The characters revolve around the plot, rather than the plot weaving the characters together. The book is completely unbelievable - it would make an excellent Lifetime movie. All I got for my time was a severe case of reading indigestion.

I found this book frustrating at many turns. I still can't figure out what the author was trying to say--women should stay at home with their children, it's hard to write a great first novel, nannies are smarter than the people they work for. This book also had some very surprising typos, and an author with little "ear" for the way people talk---especially children. The one scene that totally was a thumbs down was when the wife, Andie, gives the nanny a very hard time. The nanny doesn't quit--which would be the case in real life--but, seems to glide through the incident. I was left wondering if the author had his own children, or was an uncle of some sort, watching people, nannies and children at a distance.

Time is too precious to waste on a book like this. At least one of the characters needs at least one redeeming feature for me to care about. Stuart and Andie are such idiots, why should I bother with them? I searched for hidden satire -- at least a humorous undertone -- but found only beat-me-over-the-head foreshadowing. I didn't make it halfway through the book before moving on to worthwhile reading matter.