The Perfect Nanny

A Novel

By: Sam Taylor, Leïla Slimani

Narrated by: Finty Williams

*Soon to be an HBO series starring Nicole Kidman and Maya Erskine*

She has the keys to their apartment. She knows everything. She has embedded herself so deeply in their lives that it now seems impossible to remove her.

One of the 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR of The New York Times Book Review, by the author of Adèle, Sex and Lies, and In the Country of Others

“A great novel . . . Incredibly engaging and disturbing . . . Slimani has us in her thrall.”—Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist and Hunger

“One of the most important books of the year. You can’t unread it.”—Barrie Hardymon, NPR’s Weekend Edition

When Myriam decides to return to work as a lawyer after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect nanny for their son and daughter. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite, devoted woman who sings to the children, cleans the family’s chic Paris apartment, stays late without complaint, and hosts enviable kiddie parties. But as the couple and the nanny become more dependent on one another, jealousy, resentment, and suspicions mount, shattering the idyllic tableau. Building tension with every moment, The Perfect Nanny is a compulsive, riveting, bravely observed exploration of power, class, race, domesticity, motherhood, and madness—and the American debut of an immensely talented writer.

©2019 Leila Slimani (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

A Best Book of the Year:

The New York Times Book Review

The Boston Globe

Real Simple

Lit Hub

Entertainment Weekly (honorable mention)

Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller

Finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original

“Deliciously twisty . . . Slimani's exploration of race and class is razor-sharp and brilliantly provides the fuel for a hair-raising tale of domestic horror.”—Entertainment Weekly

“The first ‘hot’ novel of 2018 . . . Talk about a guilty pleasure.”—The Washington Post

“I've thought about [it] pretty much every day. . . . [It] felt less like an entertainment, or even a work of art, than like a compulsion. I found it extraordinary.”—Lauren Collins, The New Yorker

Fascinating story about motherhood

You’ll be intrigued from the first page. It’s a complicated story of the myriad aspects of motherhood. Beautiful writing.

So much potential...then nothing

There was no story arc. It went nowhere. The big surprise is literally the first thing, so you expect some sort of explanation. You never get it. The story just stops. Disappointing.

Unsatisfactory ending

If the murder had not been in the first chapter I would have quit this audiobook. I listened to gain understanding but was left wanting.

What?

Maybe I missed something when I fell asleep every time I listened to this story? Disappointed that there were so many loose ends left at the end. Maybe one can’t explain the unexplainable?

Sad

Perfection, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Louise was perfect for her boss, until she wasn't. A quick listen about a Paris Nanny and the family that chose her.

Page turner, but

The ending left me wanting more! I really enjoyed the story and could not hardly stop listening to it.....that ending!

Powerful

No happy ending here. Creeping under skin journey into characters. Look into another reality. Performance is just right for this book.

Disappointing - never met its potential

This story started well but it went downhill from there. While the narration was good, the writing style did not appeal to me. I was bored after the first few chapters but persevered until the end in the hope it would improve, and I was vaguely intrigued to know what happened. But the story jumped all over the place between characters and time periods, adding to the annoying writing style, and the end was a frustrating anticlimax. The concept of the book was great, but it did not live up to its potential.

Terrific

Ms. Slimani is an excellent writer on every level (interesting story, well-developed & realistic characters, etc). The story is a tragedy but Sliming focuses on the characters, rather than on the heinous act. While the book started with the reveal, she did a masterful job of building the tale and giving insight into the characters' motivations. Well worth a credit, even though the book is relatively short.

not what I expected based on the hype

This is going to be one of those “The Emperor is not wearing clothes”, situations –– I have to call it because I don’t understand all the fuss and praise and I’m not a bandwagon jumper.

I was expecting more of a calculating nanny who did everything she could to appear perfect to everyone but deep down or maybe even just not in an obvious way she had twisted secrets or a kind of malicious darkness about her. However, this nanny wasn't like that, although she was initially great at her job, she also had a lot of obvious flaws and even signs of her instability and state of mind, even early on.

I feel unsatisfied about the story as a whole mainly because we don't get to understand the nanny's rationales and ways of thinking and what truly bothered or disturbed her because her background story (the little that was offered to the audience) was not anything horrible or utterly tragic that could be traced to her actions. There was no real sense of why she did the things she did, there were very scant hints and backstory about her. My only conclusion and also based on a quick mention in the book is that she had some mood issues, but nothing more was revealed about that. Any issues about race were quickly mentioned: the mother of the children spoke Arabic or grew up speaking it at least a little and possibly was from an associated culture and the nanny was a blonde caucasian woman –– but there was no direct conflict relating to this.

I just listened to the author's other book Adele and I feel the same way, I was hoping The Nanny would be significantly better and remarkable but it just wasn't. I don't know if there are fundamentals that are lost in translation –– if it was originally written in French, but the book was just lacking, but that also may be due to all the hype surrounding the book beforehand.