Customer Reviews

A Perfect Arrangement

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Thank God I did not buy this book. Instead, I checked it out of the local library and saved myself the profound disappointment of having purchased a book which proves to be mediocre at best. I cannot believe this author actually teaches at Harvard. "A Perfect Arrangment" is so bland, so pointless, and so preposterous, that I found myself shaking my head in utter bewilderment. I am now convinced that I have enough talent to publish a novel, because if this can be published, anything can.
The plot concerns a selfish couple who hire a nanny to take over the job of parenting. Despite the fact that the nanny cooks, bakes, cleans, and obviously adores the children is seen not as a positive, but rather, something to agonize over; something for which suspicions should be aroused. There is all sorts of suspense which leads to nothing! I was rooting for the nanny which I doubt was the author's intention. The mother/wife in the story is sickening in her utter lack of domestic knowledge. She has a son who displays emotional/mental problems but choses to devote herself to her career instead of trying to help him. Both the husband and wife are lazy, selfish, and deserving nothing short of contempt, but somehow the reader is expected to share their angst! What a pointless waste of time reading this novel was. The real victim here is the nanny who is physically thrown out simply for caring too much for the little boy. Yet the jacket reads, "who can you really trust with your children"? In this case, certainly not the parents.
What a stupid story. What a waste of time reading it.

As a reader of many books, both fiction and,non-fiction, I can say without hesitation that A Perfect Arrangement is the best book I have read in years.There is not a false note in the story that has elements of the banal mixed exquisitely in with a suggestion of catastrophe at every turn. Most every sentence contains either a surprising event, a fascinating observation or a hilarious character . Suzanne Berne has an amazing ability to capture the nuances which can turn our every day activities into harrowing and sometimes hysterical leaps of faith.

This book builds and builds to its dramatic end and is ultimately disappointing. The foreshadowing is annoying rather than suspense building. The book also includes a lot of tangents and details that detract from the story itself. The more interesting characters (like the in-laws) are often set aside to dwell on the archtypes of the overly-helpful nanny, the distracted and unfaithful husband and the overextended working mother.

The climactic revelation of the nanny's misdeeds is historically short-sighted. The nanny's breech was long considered essential to taking care of children. Two hundred years ago the breech would have been a status symbol, rather than grounds for dismissal.

I thought a good editor might have been able to shape this book into something more cohesive.

I read books all of the time that seem to always have some poor child who is molested, kidnapped, abused, or otherwise tortured. Although I realize that abuse does occurr in our society, and that it is a very terrible thing, I don't think that these actual acts are what shape a family. I think that we are all more affected, ultimately, by the unhealthy relationships that would allow such terrible deeds to occurr in the first place, and that more children are adversely affected by adults who don't have their act together than by escaped convicts who wander in out of the woods, perform a terrible act and then move on (see *The Prince of Tides*)

I enjoyed this book because it effectively portrayed realistic unhealthy behavior that might really screw a kid up. No one in this novel was a sadist, no child was physically harmed, everyone was doing what they perceived to be their *best*, and yet, I fear, this childhood may or may or may not inspire years of therapy. I guess we will have to wait until they grow up to find out.

I enjoyed the novel. It was realistic, it explored a domestic space that is rarely portrayed effectively, and it demonstrated that there aren't any easy answers. Very refreshing.

I buy too many books and lately have tried to borrow more from the library. The borrow can save me a good $20 or so. This time, I wish I'd bought instead of borrowed. There were pages and pages I wanted to highlight. Oh well. I'll just have to buy it and read it again.

This book perfectly captures the mounting and messy pressures we voluntarily assume with marriage, work and family; how these pressures can overwhelm us and lead -- as Berne says -- to a life "guided by hurry, guided by hope, counting on other chances for every chance" we take. This book tells the story of a likable, flawed and very real couple, Mirella and Howard, a married lawyer and architect couple who, by outside appearance, seem to have it all. But "it all" comes with a big price tag -- two very imperfect, difficult children and a juggling act that threatens to fall apart at any moment. And fall apart it does, starting with the hiring of nanny Randy, who -- like Mirella and Howard -- ostensibly looks perfect. Randy has both a dark side and a dark past which Berne tantalizingly reveals bit by bit. And Randy isn't the only one with secrets to hide. But, don't worry, the news isn't all bad.

Many have written about the constant duel of tension and satisfaction inherent in the "have it all" battle, but never so well as here. Berne is a wonderful writer. I was mesmerized for the entire book and went to sleep way too late, unwilling to put it down. Berne's writing is entirely fresh, un-cliche'd and breezy, suspenseful and profound, all at the same time. A rare find; well worth the read and the price.

The premise of this book had me from "go." A double-income-two-kid couple is in search of a new nanny, and Randi seems to be the answer to their prayers. But as she becomes more and more indispensable, the Cook-Goldman marriage begins to unravel at the edges. Is Randi a willing participant to the family's demise, or just an unwitting bystander? The larger story is about secrets and the things we know but don't admit, even to ourselves.

I'm all for authors keeping a light touch, but seriously... this book had way too much subtext for me. I felt like there was so much going on under the surface that I was missing, and not enough action and explicaation on the page. I foun dmyself re-reading passages, wondering if I'd missed something (the scene at the fireworks was a great example of reader confusion).

Great theme, easy to read, but I felt like I read a whole book without figuring out what was really going on.

Mirella Cook-Goldman, a harried family lawyer, and her husband, Howard, a self-employed architect, are desperately searching for a nanny for their children, Pearl a difficult, independent 4-year old, and Jacob, a nearly mute undemonstrative 2 year old. Life in their ancient colonial home in the quaint village of New Ayslebury is chaotic. Mirella's 1 hour commute into Boston leaves her little time for domesticity, and they have already been through a succession of nannies who didn't stay long.

Young, eager Randi McGill, referred by a local agency, shows up to interview for the position and they hire her immediately. She seems too good to be true...she cooks, cleans, does art projects with the children and forms a strong bond with Jacob. But this strong bond upsets Mirella because it seems to go beyond what a caring nanny should do, and threatens her own relationship with her son.

Glimpses of Randi's past start to give hints that she is not a pure and unselfish as she portrays herself. Her attachment to Jacob becomes unhealthy for both of them, and Mirella wants to fire her, but Howard insists on keeping her for a while longer since she has been able to get Jacob speak a few words. There are also some strains in the relationship between Howard and Mirella and secrets they are keeping from each other.

Mirella and Howard are not perfect parents or spouses, but are realistically portrayed as parents trying to do the best they can. The tension builds throughout the novel, and the reader is being set up to expect the worst. The climax is rather odd and unsatisfying. The early promise of the book is ultimately not realized because of the awkward ending.

I would highly recommend this book on behalf of descriptive, beautiful and intelligent writing. Having been a nanny for a short time I can understand some of the actions that Randi carried out. YET as i reader i felt the joke was on me for believing i'd find out anything deeper about any of these characters or about their past. Maybe it was some of the suspense that I clung to hoping to gain insight. Some issues only scratched the surface to something more telling but we never found out any information. Overall, it was a Very well written book but i felt very let down by the characters in the end and was full of many questions. Of course maybe i was supposed to feel that way.

This wasn't what I expected. I was still "hungry" after reading it.
I just wasn't satisfied. The nanny really didn't do anything wrong with the exception of the creepy part with the child. (I won't give it away). I hate to criticize any writer but after reading it I was wondering how a publisher thought it was even good enough to publish. If you have to read it-don't buy it-borrow it-go to the library but don't waste your money.

Suzanne Berne's second novel, "A Perfect Arrangement," is ample testimony that wealthy, well-educated and upwardly mobile people can be terribly stupid about family life and the cruel ways of the world. Their utter cluelessness about parenting and their alarming propensity to self-absorbtion make Mirella and Howard Cook-Goldman as unaffecting and sympathy-repelling a pair of protagonists you'd hope to meet in a novel which purportedly examines the modern American family under stress. Awash in self-pity (oh, but there isn't enough time in the day to do all the things I need/want/desire to do) and exposed to the consequences of downright dumb decisions, the Cook-Goldmans compel the reader to utter, "You deserve this misery, you foolish idiots."

Berne's novel, set in an ancient, trendy and much-sought-after small coastal town an hour from Boston, will appeal to a select audience of east coast rich yuppies who want it all (and I mean right now) and are astonishingly blindsided when their reality doesn't match their dreams. For the rest of us who live in the real world, "A Perfect Arrangement" runs dangerously close to being irrelevant and certainly fails to connect with the lives most of us live.

Millions of American families survive far greater traumas than those of the Cook-Goldmans. In the real world, parents with children who suffer developmental disabilities would move to a location where services are available to improve the lot of their child's life. Pearl, the bratty, insolent five-year-old daughter, tyrannizes her family and makes her lawyer mother and architect father appear as the village fools in their half-baked attempt to provide some semblance of discipline to her life. In the real United States of America, embattled couples manage to fight their way through marital deceits, disappointments and despondencies. Husbands and wives learn to make sacrifices for their children and accept the human and existential limits of each other. Real people find ways not to spend their days wringing their hands over their own flaws, and they certainly lack the funds to subsidize a full-time nanny.

If you can look past these flaws, "A Perfect Arrangement" features wonderful writing, a strong narrative and a compelling conclusion. Suzanne Berne proved in her first novel, "A Crime in the Neighborhood," that she is quite capable of dissecting the contemporary American family, and her second novel surely mines the same rich vein. While her debut novel had depth and never approached stereotyping, "A Perfect Arrangment" sinks under the weight of weak secondary characters and near melodramatic conflicts. Readers who take cultural analysis seriously and expect novelists to do the same cannot help but be disappointed with "A Perfect Arrangement."