T. L. Toma

I won this book in 2021 and I never got around to reading it. That was the year my father passed and just dealing with life I forgot all about it. This is my goal is to read books that I own more then library books. I am not sure how I feel about this book. It was different and sometimes interesting. You have a family that hires a nanny from Ireland and the dynamic in the house changes. There is sexual tensions and parts that could be trigger warnings for some.

I did enjoy the characters but also felt at times that they were lacking something. You have Lily and Martin, the au pair Maive and the twin boys. Lily and Martin and two people that seem to be in their own worlds at times. He is in finance and she is a lawyer. Maeve is more of a mother to the children then Lily is at times.… (más)

Lily and Martin Fowler are well-to-do New York professionals in need of a nanny for their twin boys. They hire Maeve, fresh off the boat from Ireland, who cooks, cleans, takes care of the boys, and ends up being a voyeur invited into their previously uninspired vanilla sex life.

The writing is crisp, to the point, and sometimes beautiful. The story is told primarily from Martin’s point of view, and he has moments of vulnerable honesty. Unfortunately, particularly when fantasizing about “exotic” women, he also reveals himself to be racist, self-absorbed, and generally dislikable. We mostly see Lily through Martin’s eyes, and I often wondered how their marriage lasted as long as it did, other than sheer inertia. Maeve remained an enigma throughout, which was, I think, part of the point. The self-absorbed Fowlers never seem to consider what she wants or why she’s consented to their peculiar ménage. When Lily perpetrates a couple of cruel tricks on Maeve, first to get her to stay and then to get rid of her, I couldn’t help but want to be done with them.

The Fowlers’ white, upper-middle-class alienation and isolation from each other was thoroughly conveyed. I just felt that it could have been more effective as a short story, when my dislike for the characters and disinterest for their concerns wouldn’t have overwhelmed the theme. The episodic narrative also meant a lot of sometimes interesting but ultimately irrelevant narratives that started to feel like filler and kept the novel from coalescing into an effective whole.… (más)