Synopsis from Goodreads:
When Myriam, a mother and brilliant French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work, she and her husband are forced to look for a caretaker for their two young children. They are thrilled to find Louise: the perfect nanny right from the start. Louise sings to the children, cleans the family’s beautiful apartment in Paris’s upscale tenth arrondissement, stays late whenever asked, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on each other, jealousy, resentment, and frustrations mount, shattering the idyllic tableau.
My Thoughts:
(Disclaimer: I will never post spoilers in my reviews HOWEVER the comment section is completely fair game to discuss any and all specifics including spoilers)
2 stars
This book made me feel uncomfortable many times throughout its course. I thought this was going to be a lighthearted read of a nanny and her complex relationship with a family. The reality was this was a very dark and disturbing account of child abuse and death. Although the storyline was incredibly difficult to read, I found the actual story to be a quick read and I finished it within a few days. I always say that I hate reading the first 100 pages of any story because of all of the background knowledge which has to be told in order to “catch the reader up”. This story wasn’t like that and although briefly allowing us readers a glimpse of past events, it never fully developed any of the characters. I found this to both be a positive as well as a negative. Without this detailed description, the story was able to truly begin on page 1 and provided a quick read. However, this lack of background and character development also provided a lack of complete understanding into each character’s persona. This never allowed us as the reader to dive into the storyline/characters as deeply and completely as if we were granted more character development. The overall entire style of writing was juvenile. Easy to read sentences, lots of fragments. I hated the way the book ended. I had so many theories of possible endings as I was reading, all of which would have been more interesting than the actual ending. The front cover claims it is a “#1 international bestseller” which confuses me as it lacks so many aspects of what a bestseller should contain??? I think there is a lot that got lost in translation here…
Bottom Line:
Dark and disturbing…but a quick and easy read.
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Book Coffee Happy 
I didn’t love this one either! I agree, I found it disturbing and confusing at times too. I thought it was going to head in one direction, but then it would change. I guess that’s also a good thing, it kept me guessing. In the end, I felt like I still had so many questions and truly didn’t care what happened to most of the characters.
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Yes! Agreed. I had such high hopes for this book and ended up hating it so much. I would be curious to know how different the original is in it’s native language than this translated version?
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