Helpful Score: 4
This story is about a college student who takes a part-time job as nanny for a couple who have adopted a biracial toddler. The back cover says this book is about race, class, love, and war in America. But I think the author took on more than she could chew.
Lorrie Moore is an entertaining writer; this book had elements of such bright wit but also egregious misses. I kept wondering why all the main character Tassie Keltjin's mortifying mistakes were being cataloged - I honestly couldn't tell if she was hilarious or mentally challenged, or was that the book forcing the reader to be un-PC? But how does one confuse Brazilian for Middle Eastern from New Jersey? Why in the world is her toe bleeding in a tub "really a hello from death"? How could a kid in a car seat possibly reach up and repeatedly hit the driver of the car in the head with a shoe? How could an under-age, unemployed nanny afford to eat everything on the menu at Le Petit Expensive Restaurant including wine and then drive all the way home from Ohio to Wisconsin on a scooter, without a helmet in the rain?? There was so much clumsy foreshadowing, like Tassie being told she's "nobody's sister" for no reason at all.
I especially disliked the ending, being addressed by the writer or by Tassie or whatever that was.
Lorrie Moore is an entertaining writer; this book had elements of such bright wit but also egregious misses. I kept wondering why all the main character Tassie Keltjin's mortifying mistakes were being cataloged - I honestly couldn't tell if she was hilarious or mentally challenged, or was that the book forcing the reader to be un-PC? But how does one confuse Brazilian for Middle Eastern from New Jersey? Why in the world is her toe bleeding in a tub "really a hello from death"? How could a kid in a car seat possibly reach up and repeatedly hit the driver of the car in the head with a shoe? How could an under-age, unemployed nanny afford to eat everything on the menu at Le Petit Expensive Restaurant including wine and then drive all the way home from Ohio to Wisconsin on a scooter, without a helmet in the rain?? There was so much clumsy foreshadowing, like Tassie being told she's "nobody's sister" for no reason at all.
I especially disliked the ending, being addressed by the writer or by Tassie or whatever that was.
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