The Nanny Diaries is a brilliant novel following the life of Nan the Nanny and her life living and raising Grayer, a four year old son to the X's. Think rich snobbery, middle aged drama and high fashion couture and you have some pretty strange and intense parenting. This novel isn't only about the hardships, but about survival and where the boundaries between raising a child and career are pushed to the edge with discrimination, betrayal, and lack of respect for human rights and lives. There are some heart-warming and cute scenes in this book that helped the dramatic situations flow and the realistic nature of this book was what won me over.
I liked all the characters in this book, despite having murderous feelings towards the X's. I adored Grayer, the child of the novel and I thought he really made the book what it is and confirmed my aspirations to work with children. Nan, the main female character had some great traits, however towards the end of the book she started to loose herself and her respect and that annoyed me. However her need to survival and her love for Grayer overcome her traits.
There was only really two parts of this novel that I didn't care for. First being the quotes, that to me I didn't understand not having read any classic literature and two, H.H the main love interest in Nan's life. While I do take into consideration he was a side character, his overall personality was dull and lifeless and maybe with a little more interaction and depth he could have won my heart over.
I enjoyed the writing style of these two women, apart from the first few pages which were hard to get into. The format the novel is in opted for time to break, even when I wanted to keep reading all night and the letters, schedules and other notes broken up over the course of the book were a nice way to delve deeper into the story and the lives of each character.
I would recommend this book for anyone who likes children and chick literature. Although I dislike lumping it into one genre. I believe this book is more aimed at women.
***** 5 stars.
I love this book, it's so funny!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the One, Two, Theme! challenge by the way, looking forward to seeing which themes you choose, make sure you link again once they're up!