Customer Reviews

"You'll Never Nanny in This Town Again!": The Adventures and Misadventures of a Hollywood Nanny

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Suzanne Hansen's tale of a small-town girl who came to Los Angeles to look after the children of the immensely wealthy families in the entertainment industry is touching, fun, and dishy. She gives the names of employers who were fair and admirable (Debra Winger, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman), and assigns pseudonyms to the rich-yet-clueless (most notably, the "Swartz" family, reportedly Mike Ovitz's brood), people who think nothing of spending $20,000 for a Mediterranean cruise, yet when Dad makes a pricey phone call home, he asks first, "Is my art all right?"

Hansen's most disturbing portrait is of six-year-old "Joshua Swartz," who has already seen several nannies come and go, and who has hardened his heart to newcomers as well as to discipline.

If you like to read about La-La Land, but want to get behind the greasepaint and tinsel of the entertainment industry, this book is for you.

If you have ever wondered what it is really like to live in a house that is surrounded by gates, this book will answer some of your "how do those people really live" questions. What would it be like to have a staff live in your home? What is it like not to know where supplies are in your own kitchen?
This lifestyle is so different from mine, it would have been hard to relate, except the nanny has some of the same thoughts, feelings and questions I had while reading it. If you order this book, set aside some uninterrupted time, because it is hard to EVER find a stopping point.. I read this book in two days!

This book was hilarious. I loved her journals, they gave a look into what she was really thinking and feeling, even when she appeared calm and together on the outside. It's a total crack up! I was happy (and a little embarrassed) to read I wasn't the only one with the "all occasion black dress" - I just never knew how many occasions, and how many different ways it could be used! Her ability to laugh at herself is refreshing.

This principled, young nanny is given an unparalleled education in the service of the rich and famous where priorities are too often askew. It's a crash course in psychology as she learns to deal up-close and personal with neurosis -- alternately ludicrous and heartbreaking. Let us just say that the children do not present the only behavioral management challenges. In truth, there are times when the children and the adults are the patients running the asylum. Excess is a way of life with these power brokers, though hidden penny-pinching sometimes exposes their eccentricities. The players run the gambit from plastic to genuine, from mean-spirited to magnanimous, and from toxic to charismatic.

Using an engaging narrative style that often reads like letters home to family and chums, the author takes you behind the scenes and reveals the unvarnished truth and idiosyncratic personalities of certain film industry titans. Grounded in small-town wisdom and solid family values, she shares many opportunities to compare and contrast childhood for the entitled versus the more mundane upbringing of the "huddled masses." Exactly who is privileged and who is impoverished? That's for you to decide and why. But if you are present and available as "your kids' mom (or dad)," I believe you'll cherish the blessing of such normalcy like never before.

Maybe the appeal of this book is our ongoing fascination with class distinctions/celebrity life which provides the drama and lure in such popular offerings as People Magazine, Upstairs, Downstairs, and of course, The Nanny Diaries. However, unlike Nanny Diaries, this memoir names many names making it an irresistible immersion into a way of life most of us will never know.

Suzanne's book is a hilarious, and vivaciously accurate account of the lives of mom's and nanny's, and the children they raise and love, in the fast pace of Hollywood stardom. Her stories pull no punches as she describes her own feelings and perceptions of the situations she finds herself in dealing with mom's and their children. This is proof that everything in Hollywood is not scripted, planned, produced, or edited for the viewers pleasure. Suzanne's story will provide an excellent addition to mothers of any age, and any size family. A sure cure for postpartum depression, and a relief from the terrible two's. Life isn't always pretty, but when you gain perspective, it can always be humorous.

I couldn't put this book down. The humorous moments were balanced by the seriousness of her job and the love she had for the children. Her deep and sincere concern for her charges, even when they misbehaved or turned against her was evident throughout the book. Her innermost thoughts were revealed through her journal notations, which allows the reader the opportunity to understand what it's really like to live the life of the rich and famous.

I know there is more that was left unsaid, let's hear from you again, Suzy!

I had no idea that people so wealthy could be so cheap. I loved seeing the lives of the rich and famous through the eyes of a young naive girl. I kept having to remind myself that this really happened. I highly recommend it.

Suzanne takes you on a comical journey through her hysterically funny experiences with the "stars". She made me feel as if I were with her every step of the way and her antics had me laughing from cover to cover. I could not put this book down! Although she could have dished names, she chooses not to as that is not the focus of her book. I do believe however that she gives us "outsiders" a very real look into the untouchable lives of the rich and pampered. I hope that this is not the last that we hear from this wonderful author. You go girl!

I love this book! I am almost done with it, could not put it down for days to the point of taking the bus so I could read instead of walking to and from work like I normally do! I had already guessed, like another reader, that the Swartz's were really the Ovitz's and in a blog online there is an actual reference to a story about how Ovitz's son peed in the front yard and then told the nanny that she was not his boss! You don't hear much about old Mike these days! Maybe he should have been nicer to Suzanne!

I had an extremly hard time putting this book down. I gobbled it up within a week. I was sad when it ended as it was my couch companion when ever I got a chance to sit down and read it without hearing , "mmmmmooooommmmmy!!!!!!"

I laughed so hard when she scraped the truck down an inch. I was afraid for her life when she went to get her nails done. I could feel my own face tingle when she treated herself to a day of torture at the spa. You just cannot wait to see what happens next! This book is so entertaining. It will make you laugh, shake your head in disbelief at these rich people (but then again...), cry, and laugh some more! You don't have to be a nanny to relate to some of this. We've all got a skeleton in our baby sitting closets. I know I do! LOL! It just made reading this even funnier. Then again the Swartz' made my short lived stint with one family look like the Cleavers.

I was hooked from the directors commentary. Don't wait a minute longer. Go out and get this book!