Customer Reviews

Nanny Diaries

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A note is left for you to organize the gift bags for your boss's dinner party, but no details are left. She doesn't answer her cell and no one seems to know what color, style etc... Do you call her husband (who you have not met in the two months that you have been taking care of his child) and attempt to get and answer, or take the risk of messing up and being fired? In the realistic fiction book The Nanny Diaries by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus, Nanny is a NYU student paying her rent by taking care of children who belong to snobby, neglecting Upper East Side families

A major idea is a comparison of a close family vs. a family that is hardly connected at all because the father works non-stop and the mother pulls and act of pretending to know everything about her son yet doesn't spend anytime with him and lets the innocent nannies have all the responsibly.

Readers who enjoy reading books so as The Devil Wears Prada and the Gossip Girl Series should enjoy the crazy nonsense that goes on in The Nanny Diaries.

I had originally thought that this was going to be a work of non-fiction in a nanny tell all. It turned out, instead, to be a mildly funny look at the rich and obnoxious and their young children through the eyes of a spineless nanny. While some of this book is amusing, it is not particularly well written. It is the kind of book you read once, and then promptly forget. It is not a bad book, as it is somewhat entertaining. What this book really represents is what happens when a book grabs the attention of the media. It becomes a best seller. Long after the dust settles, I anticipate that this book will be to the publishing world, what a one hit wonder is to the music industry.

This work of fiction provides caricatures of selfish, self-absorbed, wealthy parents and a peek into the life of their overly-structured and overly-managed offspring. The nanny in question is also a caricature, as she struggles to be appear good hearted, but in the end is just a spineless jellyfish who goes along with the program, no matter how offensive she may find her employers and their demands to be. The nanny tries to come across as an underprivileged, put upon employee, but is, in reality, part of the problem, as she is certainly not a part of the solution. She is an upper middle class young woman who attends a prestigious university. She is hardly one of the hoi polloi, no matter how much she may empathize with those who are truly at the mercy of employers such as the ones found in this book. As social satire this book falls short. Borrow it from the library. Do not bother to buy it, as it is a one note book. If you feel that you must buy it, do yourself a favor and buy the paperback, as it is not a book that you would want to keep. It is a quick, throwaway read.