Nanny Returns

Nanny Returns
By Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
Atria Books, 2009. 305 pages. Fiction

It’s been 12 years since Nanny was fired and then forced to abandon her charge, Grayer, in this sequel to The Nanny Diaries. Nan has since married “Harvard Hottie” a.k.a. Ryan Hutchinson and moved abroad while he worked for the U.N. Now having moved back to New York, Nan is thrust into the X’s world again after a late-night, drunken visit from a now 16-year-old Grayer who blames Nan for deserting him. Other than a second son, Stilton, nothing much has changed in the X household. Mr. and Mrs. X are still emotionally unavailable and Grayer still longs for his father’s approval.

In Nan’s own life, Ryan has decided he is ready to have children, but Nan isn’t so sure. In addition to trying to get a new consulting business off the ground and renovating their home while Ryan travels to Africa for a job, Nan isn’t even sure she wants to have children. She’s seen too many parents screw their kids up and is afraid of doing the same thing.

I enjoyed reading the first book, The Nanny Diaries, but this book was mostly a disappointment for me. There was somewhat of a final resolution for Grayer, Nanny, and the X’s, but I was hoping for newer material instead of the same old recrimination of the lack of morals and care for other human beings that the wealthy elite have.

AJ