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A review by inarasarah
The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Slimani
2.0
I'm going to try to not overly denounce this book since it's a foreign translation, and I often find that foreign novels read differently than those in my native language. Writing styles vary around the world, so perhaps in France this is how thrillers are written.
But man, this was a bad book. I absolutely cannot recommend it. It's a very surface-level story of a nanny, highly recommended, who comes to work for a well-off family because the mother wants to go back to work after years as a stay at home mom. There are a couple of off-putting incidences - the nanny puts a full face of makeup on her 4 year old charge, and when the dad is angry she just glares at him and refuses to apologize or even say a word in her defense - and then she murders the children.
We never really get an inside look at any of these characters. The mom wants to go back to work, that's all we know. The husband doesn't care, if she thinks work will make her happy. They both do well at their jobs. We get some hints about the nanny having a mental illness history, but no insight into what's wrong with her.
I didn't care about any of these characters, or feel any way about them at all really. The nanny seemed a bit strange, maybe, but I didn't dislike her or find her creepy. I also didn't like her. Everyone was just neutral, and uninteresting, and even the murders aren't interesting - we learn about the murders in the opening chapter of the book, and then at the end we jump to a time past the murders, when a cop is investigating why they happened. That's it. No explanation for what happened, just... neutral storytelling about some events that happened.
Can't recommend. Not worth the time.
But man, this was a bad book. I absolutely cannot recommend it. It's a very surface-level story of a nanny, highly recommended, who comes to work for a well-off family because the mother wants to go back to work after years as a stay at home mom. There are a couple of off-putting incidences - the nanny puts a full face of makeup on her 4 year old charge, and when the dad is angry she just glares at him and refuses to apologize or even say a word in her defense - and then she murders the children.
We never really get an inside look at any of these characters. The mom wants to go back to work, that's all we know. The husband doesn't care, if she thinks work will make her happy. They both do well at their jobs. We get some hints about the nanny having a mental illness history, but no insight into what's wrong with her.
I didn't care about any of these characters, or feel any way about them at all really. The nanny seemed a bit strange, maybe, but I didn't dislike her or find her creepy. I also didn't like her. Everyone was just neutral, and uninteresting, and even the murders aren't interesting - we learn about the murders in the opening chapter of the book, and then at the end we jump to a time past the murders, when a cop is investigating why they happened. That's it. No explanation for what happened, just... neutral storytelling about some events that happened.
Can't recommend. Not worth the time.