About book You'll Never Nanny In This Town Again: The True Adventures Of A Hollywood Nanny (2006)
i wasn't really into this. it's a memoir by a woman who went to hollywood & worked as a nanny for a high-powered well-connected entertainment business couple. it wasn't a great situation, not because her employers were evil, horrible people, but because of the inherent power dynamics at play in such a situation & the fact that when the author got the job, she was like 18 & fresh out of nanny school & totally failed to agree to a contract or even any verbal arrangement about what exactly the job would entail. she she started to feel exploited & taken for granted, but she was so starstruck by the couple & their famous friends, & so emotionally attached to the children, & so in la-la land because of her small-town friends back home were so impressed with her, that she waited until she was pushed beyond her limit before tendering her resignation. at which point she was fired & forbidden from seeing the kids again.she went to to work briefly for a couple of well-known actors, but eventually decided that she wanted to do more than nanny, & so, with her new employers' blessing & encouragement, she returned to the pacific northwest to pursue a nursing degree.this book was written like twenty years after the events it addresses took place. & it's weird, because it's a book about hollywood, & so all the famous people that get mentioned are people that were a big deal in, like, 1987. like sally field. there's a story about being present on the set of "twins". i mean, it's just unsettling. & it kind of feels like name-dropping sometimes, but it's like listening to your not-very-with-it grandma try to name drop about how once she did the two-step with some guy from "falcon crest". it's both boring & uncomfortable.also boring & uncomfortable is how all these nanny memoirs seem to go the same way: some rich people decide to hire a nanny, the nanny sees that they need help because they can't be fussed to take care of their kids best interests themselves, the nanny completely falls in love with the charges in her care & possibly bros down with the other household staff as well (generally transcending racial barriers in the process because the nanny is so awesome that way even though she's pretty much always a young white woman--at least in the memoirs), the nanny begins to feel exploited, the employers do some nice things that could be seen as buying the nanny off, eventually the nanny's well-honed sense of justice can no longer be ignored & she gives notice, she is then fired & forbidden from the children she loves so much, she soldiers on & has an epiphany about how money can't buy you a soul or something.i mean, nothing against nannies. some of my best friends are nannies! but there's a difference between being a real-life nanny & being a nanny in a nanny memoir, & i don't doubt that the nanny memoir model is possibly shaped to some degree by publishing companies. basically, this book was a fucking slog that made me relieved that i am not a nanny, nor am i rich. the end.
I read this book in about a week, just an hour or two each night, so it's quick, easy read. And I have a lot going on right now, so I wasn't in the mood for a heavy or deep, meaningful story and this fit the bill.I think the reason for my low rating is that I was disappointed by the lack of humor. I had read "The Nanny Diaries" a few years ago and remember laughing through it. I had hoped this one would be somewhat similar.This is the real-life account of one former Hollywood nanny and her employment with the Ovitz family, followed by a short stint with Debra Winger and then Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman's family. If her accounts are even half true I am saddened (but not shocked) by the behaviors of the Ovitzes and have a new found respect for Debra Winger and the DeVito family. The author acknowledges that she did herself a big disservice by not insisting on a contract and not really even having a conversation up front about expectations for working hours, salary, etc. Even when she realized that she needed to say something, she didn't. I agree that alot of the strife she had with the Ovitzes was from her not standing up for herself, but that doesn't excuse some of the behavior on the part of the family.There were times when I thought the Ovitzes actually sounded pretty nice, like when Michael called the dealership and got them to agree to selling Suzy her car at cost. But then there were other times when they just had unrealistic expectations. I'm not sure that it was intentional, I just think they didn't think beyond themselves sometimes, or didn't live in the real world enough to think about how unrealistic they were being.I did like that you watched Suzy grow up from a naive, small-town 19-year-old to a more seasoned, and happy 25+ year old who had finally found the things that she wanted for herself.If you want an easy read or enjoy memoirs or peeks into Hollywood, this will probably fit the bill.
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Memoir from a former Hollywood nanny. This was fine; defintiely a quick read (I read it during the commercials of the Chargers/Raiders game). The writing was pretty lackluster. I didn't find it "funny" as the description called it. And the author was a real dipsh*t at times. Interestingly I thought the best parts of the book were at the end when she a couple of nice employers. And I expected the "mean" ones to be more jaw-droppingly terrible. They were certianly annoying and no one I'd want to work for, but I've seen much more demanding/unreasonable people in a plain ol' non-famous office.
—Michelle
Amusing story about a young nanny finding herself working for the top agent in Hollywood. I didn't realize it was a true story when I bought it ... The supposed mega-agent Michael Orvitz, actually comes off pretty well -- fairly sympathetic most of the time until the end. It's his wife Judy comes off as a mean person.In the end, I find the story something of a compromise ... it's not really that titillating in terms of Hollywood gossip, and not really that mean-spirited an attack on the ridiculous values and lifestyles of the rich and famous, and not really that compelling a narrative on its own. Just a little bit of each.Overall, I liked it. The protagonist is generally sympathetic and realistic, and there are enough moderately interesting plot points to keep me going.The weakest part is the end ... after she leaves the Orvitzes ... the story just peters out ... perhaps she didn't want to reveal any secrets with her other employers ... but if she wanted to concentrate on just the Orvitzes, then she should have found a way to end the book there rather than giving us a few dozen more pages of blah ...
—Sam Choi
This book is a first-person account of a young 18-year-old who ventures to California to become a Hollywood nanny. Her employers include Michael & Judy Ovitz, Debra Winger & Timothy Hutton and Rhea Perlman & Danny DeVito. Written in 2005, the book recounts events taking place some 20 years earlier. However, the stories are timeless, and the celebrities involved memorable. The time lapse also seems to give the author a clearer perspective on her journey and makes the book a stronger and more substantial "light" read. The book is well edited, and keeps you interested. Surprisingly engaging.
—Wendy
