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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Missing something?, October 31, 2008
I feel like this book was missing about 3 chapters. The ending was abrupt and there was no real plot or conflict in the book. Phillipa spends the summer as a nanny at a spa on the Maine coast. One of the requirements was "must love black." The two twins she takes care of are a little strange, but nothing out of the ordinary happens with them. There is an appearance of a ghost that leads no where and some slight romantic tension that gets explained away in one sentence. Interesting premise but it went nowhere. Weird.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't waste your time..., February 15, 2009
Phillipa takes off in the middle of her dad's wedding to pastel-loving Krystal, in order to head off to her summer job - being a nanny who "loves black" to ten-year-old twin girls at a luxurious but creepy spa in Maine. The spa has all the latest amenities, including a hot gardener named Geoff, a bossy, a ghost-obsessed business-women named Lady Buena Verde, an absent-minded father, and a prissy assistant, Laurie, who may or may not be dating Geoff. However, the twins and their new nanny are not to be seen or heard by guests, despite orders for Phillipa to make the twins have "fun" so that they can get over their mother's death. Phillipa is still grieving her own mother's death, but she's ready to take on the challenge.
So... sound kind of crappy? That's because it is! This is a relatively harmless fluff-book, but the writing is weak, the characters don't develop, the ending is abrupt, and a major plot-point - Phillipa getting over her mother's death - just gets dropped. She starts out still mourning her mother (and it's been several years since she died in a car wreck that it's hinted was caused by Phillipa's cat... WTH?) and hating the idea of having fun. But she throws herself into forcing the twins to have fun, like going to the arcade, swimming, or hanging out in the butterfly garden. A few ghosts appear in the story with absolutely no consequence, even after one of them tries to kill Phillipa. There are hints that Lady Buena Verde could help her contact these spirits, but absolutely nothing comes of it.
The romance complication between Geoff and Laurie is explained away in one sentence and he'll probably be visiting Phillipa after the summer, who I guess will be going back to her unhappy life with her dad and new stepmother. These are the classic YA adults who hardly care that their teenage daughter will be spending the summer in a strange mansion as a nanny, or that she takes off in the middle of their wedding, after throwing away her bridesmaid dress.
You'd think that maybe the positive of this book is that it's a light, quick read... and it is. But the language is so dated, I have a hard time imagining teens would want to read it. There are references to Dragnet in this... Dragnet! Which last aired in 1959. Very relevant to today's teens. There are just so many good books out there, there's not much a reason to waste your time on this.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
An incomplete story, April 9, 2010
This review is from: Must Love Black (Hardcover)
Philippa's father has just remarried. To avoid her father's and his new wife's sickening honeymoon, Phillipa takes a summer job as a nanny with an odd specification: must love black (which she totally does). When she gets to the client's residence, it turns out to be a very fancy spa called Chrysalis Cliff. Her charges are two 10 year old twins (named Rienne and Triste) who are intelligent, overly sensible, and share Phillipa's love for black. At the spa, Phillipa and the girls have very little area to roam around in and the girls' father is a workaholic. Will Phillipa get the girls to have a little fun and reconnect with their father? Is there a point at all to this book? No.
Phillipa immediately struck me as an ungrateful, whiny teenager. I'm willing to concede that it's because I can't really relate to her or because I'm not a teenager anymore. (I ran into the same problem with Shilo, the supposed protagonist of Repo! the Genetic Opera.) However, leaving in the middle of your father's wedding reception without saying goodbye before being away for an entire summer is just plain rude in my book. Her behavior was more tolerable when she started working (mostly because she wanted to keep her job), but I don't think she changed her attitude significantly. I really liked the quirky little twins, Triste and Rienne, with their solemn natures and sensible ways. They reminded me of little Edward Gorey type characters. They were the most enjoyable part of the book for me.
I felt that this book was incredibly incomplete. There were huge chunks of plot missing. Since the spa was called Chrysalis Cliff, I figured Phillipa would have some sort of change: a mental or emotional or physical change of some sort. I was wrong. There was a a couple incidences with a possible ghost following and interacting with Phillipa, but again, there was no follow through. It really didn't need to be there at all and just made the book kind of confusing. The end was missing at least a chapter. Very few of the problems were solved: Phillipa still has to return to her "evil" stepmother with the same mentality she had at the beginning of the novel. Lady BV, the father's partner who doesn't seem to like the children very much, remains unchanged and still works against the children, although her influence is a bit diminished. The romantic plot line was resolved in about a sentence. How hard is it to ask a guy if he's dating someone? Not that hard! This is what the problem with relationship between Phillipa and Geoff boiled down to. The writing just didn't flow very well.
The concept of the novel was interesting and had a lot of potential, but turned out to fall flat. I liked some of the story, but the holes and failed expectations overpowered the aspects that I liked. I only took about a day to read this, but I would recommend using that time to read something a little more coherent.
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