Summer Reading II, 2011

I just finished The Nanny Diaries.  To be honest, I didn't like it.  I didn't like the way Mrs. X became more and more virulent.  No one should be treated the way she treated Nan on that awful trip to Nantucket.  I didn't like the ending (more about that in a moment...) The writing itself was not bad, and it did have some funny moments, but I was hoping for something a bit lighter after Volunteer Slavery, and the deteriorating behavior of the Xes just made me cringe at how awful they were.  Not that I had expected them to be so wonderful, but they really blackened what I'd hoped would be a different reading experience.

I didn't like the ending for several reasons: 1) the book jacket's description made it seem as though Nan would somehow hold out until getting her post-college job - either that - or I thought maybe she might be fired, but with not quite such hate (more in the line of what happened to Caitlin); 2) Mrs. X is just so hateful to Nan I'd like to have seen her get her comeuppance; 3) being a good cat lover, I couldn't help but wonder how Nan's cat George will react to dog Grace.

Then there's number  4).  I wanted to see Nan and H. H. (really Ryan it turns out)still together, see Nan start her first job...maybe have her see Grayer at his high school graduation or something.  Well, I almost didn't write this as the authors actually wrote a sequel, Nanny Returns, which goes into Nan's life 12 years after the end of The Nanny Diaries.  When I checked on Amazon.com prior to this, I found it in the listings and read some reader reviews.  It certainly doesn't sound like anything I would like to read.  To me it sounds as though the authors should have left well enough alone, although, I think that with a different ending they could have tied up the loose ends in that first book.  BTW - a Nanny named Nan? Come on!  And they didn't even give Ryan a name until the second book?  And would have it have been so hard to pick a last name for the Xes?  It IS fiction, after all, right?

Anyway, this was definitely not the book I was hoping for.  Now I have to search my shelves (The Good Lord knows they're not empty of books, for sure) for something to "clear the palette."