I enjoy most of Ruth Ware's novels but I'm still unsure what to think of this one. The construct of the novel doesn't work at all: a female prisoner writing to a lawyer she's never met, telling him every excruciating detail of what led to her being imprisoned. However, by the end of the novel it's clear why this construct was chosen (I still don't think it works). Rowan Caine works at a daycare in the baby room. She happens across an ad for a live-in nanny in Scotland and decides to go for the job. She hints that she has an ulterior motive for wanting the job. In a whirlwind, she sends off her application, gets an interview, quits her daycare job, and steps in as the 5th nanny to the Elincourt girls, ages 8, 5, and toddler plus a 14-year-old teenager who enters the story towards the end of the book. The Elincourts are architects and both mum and dad are off to work out of the country as soon Rowan arrives. Their house, a Victorian, has been mostly modernized, especially as a "smart" home. Creepy things start to happen almost immediately and Rowan is left in no doubt why the other nanny's left. The creep factor is mostly well done though I expected even more of the "smart house driving me crazy" stuff. This whole story is build up to Rowan explaining to the off-page attorney that she did not cause the death of "that little girl." (not a spoiler--the child's death is mentioned at the get go). There is a LOT of build up here with very little payoff. Oh, there are twists at the end, one that probably could have sufficed for the whole book and another, final one that just left me disturbed and unsure how I felt about the whole thing.
Thursday, August 22, 2019
The Turn of the Key/ Ruth Ware/ 336 pgs
I enjoy most of Ruth Ware's novels but I'm still unsure what to think of this one. The construct of the novel doesn't work at all: a female prisoner writing to a lawyer she's never met, telling him every excruciating detail of what led to her being imprisoned. However, by the end of the novel it's clear why this construct was chosen (I still don't think it works). Rowan Caine works at a daycare in the baby room. She happens across an ad for a live-in nanny in Scotland and decides to go for the job. She hints that she has an ulterior motive for wanting the job. In a whirlwind, she sends off her application, gets an interview, quits her daycare job, and steps in as the 5th nanny to the Elincourt girls, ages 8, 5, and toddler plus a 14-year-old teenager who enters the story towards the end of the book. The Elincourts are architects and both mum and dad are off to work out of the country as soon Rowan arrives. Their house, a Victorian, has been mostly modernized, especially as a "smart" home. Creepy things start to happen almost immediately and Rowan is left in no doubt why the other nanny's left. The creep factor is mostly well done though I expected even more of the "smart house driving me crazy" stuff. This whole story is build up to Rowan explaining to the off-page attorney that she did not cause the death of "that little girl." (not a spoiler--the child's death is mentioned at the get go). There is a LOT of build up here with very little payoff. Oh, there are twists at the end, one that probably could have sufficed for the whole book and another, final one that just left me disturbed and unsure how I felt about the whole thing.
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