The Perfect Nanny // review

"The baby was dead. It took only a few seconds." 

Whatever faults this book may have, it definitely had a gut-punching opening.  

The bright blue cover, the title, nothing gives away the dark secret, the twisting and writhing psychology that fills every page of this book. 

When I purchased The Perfect Nanny, I expected drama; the synopsis boasts of jealousy, resentment, and tensions, so perhaps an affair? 

Nothing prepared me for the first line, the first page which proclaimed a death before it had even begun.  What followed was a murder mystery unlike any other I have read.  Not a "Who done it" but a "Why did she do it" question that ever loomed through every page....and honestly? I'm not completely sure if it was answered.

Warning: Review DOES contain spoilers.

Synopsis: 

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' upscale tenth arrondissement, stays late whenever asked, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But as the couple and the nanny become more dependant on each other, jealousy, resentment and frustrations amount, shattering the idyllic tableau. 

What I Didn't Like: 

• Without having to puzzle together who committed the murder, the book had a sole purpose; leading you to realize why the murder had been committed. Instead, after closing the book, I was left with a vague sense of almost understanding. Louise was jealousy, that much was clear. She was a woman who had been worked and stepped over all her life. Louise was nothing more than a rug for other's to wipe their feet on and cast out when they were done with her.  But I didn't fully understand how that led her to murder two children who she had, earlier in the book, adored. While perhaps the twist of mental illness might have made sense to a psychologist, to an average reader, it felt too complex, too far-fetched. 
• The book spared no punches when it came to its cast of characters.  In this book, there are no angels and there are no demons either.  Everyone had skeletons in their closet and everyone had their moments of goodness.  That being said, there were very few times when the people in this book were actually likable.  The depiction of them was too rough, too careless and too robotic in its emotions and there was no chance of bonding with anyone. As such, there wasn't much emotional punch in the end (except for Adam. I bonded to Adam, but he's a baby. Whats there to not bond to?)
• Above all others, I loathed Paul. His fatherhood wasn't just sloppy, so was his marriage skills. Myriam voiced multiple concerns to him about Louise's actions. Mother intuition was not to be denied, and yet each time he calmed and placated her and made Myriam feel like she was overreacting. Instead of supporting his wife, he seemed to almost take Louise's side in many of Myriam's concerns (which made no sense, as he didn't seem to really like Louise even to start with).  Instead of siding with Myriam's founded concerns regarding Louise, he disliked her for petty things...like how she was so pale, white and thin. 
• Louise herself was a massive puzzle. She was difficult and petty, she showed signs of being mentally disturbed...but to the point of murdering two children? I didn't see that anywhere. Like I said earlier, perhaps it would be more evident to someone who is a professional and trained to see the hints, but to the average reader, she didn't seem like the murdering sort (aside from that one weird flashback where she beat her daughter. but even then, beating someone and purposefully committing murder are very, very different things). 
• The plot jumped around an awful lot. One minute, we are in the present, with the police captain going over evidence and interrogating possibly witnesses, then the next, we are in the past, with Louise faithfully caring for the Masses' children, and then we go back further, to Louise's own troubled past. Like a pinball, the author took us all over the place, never allowing us a moment to rest on a linear plotline.  While this was undoubtedly intentional, it also resulted in an inability for me to fully grasp the gravity of what was happening and when it was happening. 

What I Did Like: 

• The writing was truly magnificent. Slimani wove words as a goddess would weave gold. Particularly her descriptions of human bodies, even bodies people would normally skip over, commanded attention and gaze.  It is a skill to both turn people into something whole, physical, beautiful and ugly all within one or two sentences. This is something I have to give over to the translator as well (the book was originally published in French and has just been translated). 
• Included in that, it is rare you find a book which depicts children truly well. Usually, the author fringes on too innocent, or too childish. Instead, Silmani wrote Mina and Adam with just as much poise, mind, and soul as the adults (if not more, since the children were the only ones I almost bonded to and the children felt like real people, more so than even the adults). 
• The setting was written in a way that only someone who had breathed its air, walked the streets and lived a life in Paris could have ever written it.  American authors glamorize Paris, but The Perfect Nanny felt like it was set in a Paris I had never seen, and yet fondly yearned for. Dingy, greasy cafe's, bustling crowds in train stations, and neighborhood parks gave a surprisingly urban and unmagical glance into Paris. Slimani, a French native, would be familiar with Paris in a way American authors simply cannot be, and this shown through in her work. I really have to say, the setting was one of my most favorite aspects of this book. 
• Despite a plot that followed no linear line, but skipped all over the place, the plot never once bored me.  Like reading a journal or private diary, the novel kept your rapt and scandalized attention all the way to the end.  Truthfully, the book was utterly personal to its cast of characters, and reading it felt like a look into a completely private set of lives. 
• As mentioned before, the plot did not follow a traditional murder novel plot. It told you, up front, who was the murderer and worked on the 'why' instead of the 'who'. It was a refreshing change!

In summary, while this was an entertaining and grasping read, the end did not fulfill itself quite as I wish.  I feel like there were gaps in the storytelling, and the book focused more on being artistic and beautiful (which it was), rather than making complete sense.  While this made for a flowing read, it did not make for a very satisfying story, at least for me.  It was a quick read, and Silmani's depictions of a family that is both dysfunctional and loving was refreshing.  I also enjoyed the twist, in that we knew who killed the family, but not the probable reason for the murder.  With that being said...I still don't fully grasp Louise's reason for murdering the children; the book did not make it entirely clear.  Whether that is a purposeful intent of the author, an error in translating, or simply a point going over my head, I'm unclear. 

:::Links:::

Amazon // NPR author interview // Goodreads // Washington Post Review // NPR Review