The Nanny Diaries (2004)

By Nicola Kraus & Emma McLaughlin
This book really wasn’t very good, but still somehow I kept reading. Nanny, our heroine, is employed by Mr and Mrs X, to look after their son Grayer. Mrs X, in particular, is so unbearably awful that you keep turning the pages in hopes that she will be socially humiliated, made to realise what an awful parent and worthless human being she is and then consequently die of shame.

Unfortunately this never happens. Nanny continues to work for the X’s, carrying out all of their unreasonable demands and never once fighting back. When she is sacked at the end of the novel she doesn’t even leave a few prawns hidden around the apartment for good measure. She does leave them a recorded message on the Nannycam they have installed in the apartment, but it wasn’t anywhere near as vitriolic as I would have liked.

I think what was most disturbing about this book, despite the authors’ protestations of fictional status, was that I am sure every incident in this book is based on fact, and that such shocking people really do exist. I just wanted to shake everybody – the X’s for obvious reasons, and Nanny for continuing to work for them.

Rating: 3 out of 10