Rating: 
Summary: Great Summer Read
Review: took me a little while to get into this book, but once I did, I read it in 3 days. I have been a nanny in NYC, so I could completely relate to it. It's witty and funny, but sad because I know that this story is not completely fiction. The names might be made up, but the circumstances happen too often. Great for anyone who has a job dealing with children.
Rating: 
Summary: An Amusing Diversion
Review: The Nanny Diaries opens well, and reads easily. While parts of it were laugh-out-loud, a great deal of the fun was that it was so easy to empathize with the unreasonable demands and ridiculous snobbery of the New York upper class portrayed. Anyone who has ever worked as a nanny or in child care will have had experiences to match some of Nan's.The plot moved along well at first, but I was disappointed by the end. I like my fiction to either finish with more loose ends tied up, or to to at least end with a point. (And I wanted HH (Harvard Hottie) to have a name...referring to him as HH was quite distracting). Would I read it again? No. Did I enjoy it? Yes.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful from start to finish
Review: I had the pleasure of reading this highly entertaining, hard to put down novel. This book is about a college student named Nan who is majoring in Child Development at NYU and takes a job as a nanny to a 4 yr Grayer Addison X. Her employer (Grayer's Mom)is a self-absorbed, inconsiderate woman. The father is even worse, and practially non-existent as a father & husband. The book itself is aimed at being very funny yet has a very sad overall tone. I enjoyed this one very much!
Rating: 
Summary: No, not funny.
Review: Okay, going into this novel, I was promised humor. With humor, one also expects light-heartedness. Not so with the "Nanny Diaries". I give it four stars because it is well executed and the idea of an upper class household is very viable, especially to those of us who are not upper class. But, it is just not funny. The story of the child who is, more or less, neglected, does not make for laugh out loud humor. It's more sad than anything. If you want funny, go find "Heartbreaker" or "Girls' Poker Night". Those are funny books. This is not, but the story and the idea behind the story is intruguing and that's why to buy it and not for the humor.
Rating:
Summary: Funny, with a sad 'overtone'
Review: Can't write much w/o giving away the entire book, and I abhor when reviewers do that on here. Great book, with sad overtone. Enough said!
Rating: 
Summary: A Lousy Ending
Review: I actually enjoyed this book up until about the last third. I really really disliked the ending, I felt I had spent all this time getting into the story, getting to know the characters and the ending was such a letdown. I just ended up feeling really sad for everyone involved in this story. I guess I would have really liked to see some kind of resolution, or at the very least some characters get what they had coming to them.
DON'T READ FURTHER IF DON'T WANT TO KNOW SOME DETAILS
I just didn't like how nanny said she knew she would never see Grayer again, but I mean come on, she is currently dating a guy who lives in the same building as the family, your telling me that she might never bump into them.
Just a very weak ending that spoiled the whole book.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious, Sad, and Oh So True
Review: I have several friends who are nannies and this book simply reiterated all the horror stories I have heard from them. While none of the Mr. and Mrs. X's I know are chaffeured around in town cars, the sentiment is the same - wealthy people without any time or concern for the children they brought into the world. The authors' descriptions of the people, the houses, the mountains of activities the children are required to participate in, and the overwhelming responsibilities placed on the nanny ring true from every page. While I was sad for poor Grayer, I also found myself giggling while reading this book simply because I know this is really the way it is, no matter how insane it sounds.
Rating:
Summary: what a whimp!
Review: I am extremely disappointed with this book. Poor character progression.... By the end of the book I thought that Nanny deserved all she got for letting Mrs. X get away with that attitude. I can tell that instead of leaving the x's a dirty message for revenge, the authors of this book just decided to use the book as revenge. What unsympathetic characters!!!
Rating:
Summary: Good read
Review: This book is a great way spend an afternoon. What works about it? The character of Nanny, the narrator. She's wonderful and I think most people could listen to her tell stories all day. Her observations seem sharp, she cares about people (and makes you care about them, too), and she's funny. What's ambiguous: The ending is either problematic or interesting and realistic, depending on your point of view. As a reader, you're left wishing for one more scene, but Nanny doesn't get to see that scene, so I guess we don't, either. What doesn't work as well: The prose seems hyper-edited and air-brushed. The result is a little anti-septic. It's obvious the publisher didn't trust these first-time novelists' natural style. Maybe that was a good call, but the result is the reader may hear a NY editor's talking over the authors' voice at times. That is, I've read this same style a dozen times in the last few years from a variety of authors. Next time, editors, let the authors flex their literary muscles a little. And even though it's hyper-edited, it's not necessarily well-edited. There's some weird paragraphing that starts to look like point-of-view errors. In any case, it's confusing at times, whereas if the prose had been allowed to breathe a little, it might have been less confusing and more interesting.
Rating:
Summary: Humorous and Heartbreaking
Review: This novel takes a humorous and sarcastic look at a typical rich family in which the main character "Nanny" works for the ultra rich X family watching their lonely, spoiled, only child Grayer. What began in this novel as an unbelievable account of this families foibles and attitudes became all to real as we read through Nanny's narration about the neglect and at times real suffering the four year old Grayer experiences as he sadly begs for his parent's attention.
The account of his mother, who must consult a "specialist" each time there is any conflict and whose days are filled with manicures, pedicures and meetings with decorators begins at first humorously because you can hardly believe that actual people like that exist, takes a sad turn as you realize that there are people who would rather have a nanny raise their child than have their own child hug them when they return home from a day out because they might get a handprint on a designer outfit. I know this book was done tongue in cheek, but there is a sad, umistakeable ring of truth about Nanny's small, pathetic charge Grayer as he suffers through the changes in staff his parents make seemingly randomly and without thought that these employee's have been the most important people in their son's life.
Much of the book has Nanny questioning why she continues to put up with the X's behavior. The reader is treated to interactions between Nanny and Mrs. X that have you incredulous at the employers superior attitude and sense of entitlement. Mr. X is another story as his affairs and total lack of interest in his family are infuriating to read about. I did tire of hearing about how incredibly selfish these parents were and how incredibly selfless Nanny was and this made the middle of this 306 page book slow going.
Many reviews will say that this book was hilarious and I would agree if I didn't know that although written with a wicked sense of sarcasm and exaggeration, there is unmistakeable truth about this family that can only make some of us really sad.
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