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uogabunbuckis's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Violence
kiralovesreading's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
The ending was rushed and confusing. It’s like she didn’t have a way to wrap it all up so she just didn’t. I’ve read worse books, though.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, and Murder
shrutislibrary's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Parisian couple Myriam & Paul's marriage suffers from the inevitable strains of two children born in quick succession. Myriam, who was once a promising young lawyer is now relegated to changing stinking nappies & breastfeeding. Eternally bored & caged in their small two-bedroom apartment, she feels desperate to be a lawyer again (as luck would have it, an old law school friend comes in handy).
But they are now plagued by the nanny problem, that is until 'the perfect nanny' arrives on their doorstep as a saviour of all their problems - Louise, a 40 something woman with childlike manners & doll-like porcelain features: her face ageless & graceful.
Paul & Myriam's careers take off: they live in a perfect world but soon their perfect lives are upended when the vengeful nanny murders one of their children, Adam, slashes her wrists & throat & is rendered unconscious in the process. A police investigation is launched, media are at the gates, the cries & helpless gasps of other mothers echo in this quiet, prim & proper, middle-class Paris neighbourhood. The first chapter opens with the murders and for the next 200 pages, we try to solve not the 'whodunit' but the 'why she did it?'
'Lullaby' starts poised with all the right ingredients of a sharp-edged domestic thriller: negligent working parents too consumed by their careers, upper-class neighbours whispering & spying on each other, nannies in the park gossiping openly about their bosses while hiding their secrets, children playing & crying, demanding too much. The novel offers an incisive socioeconomic commentary on the condition of the 'classless' class of immigrants - a whole upstairs/downstairs dynamic a la Downton Abbey - an army of nannies who are coloured, destitute immigrants, who arrive in the 1000s in France from Morocco, Philippines, India & Middle East. All these women - mothers in their homeland, nannies in France suffer from a lack of identity, a sense of place and alienation from the institutions of democracy & liberty that this nation has to offer.
What happens when the only place that Louise has for a home- the one where she is needed-the one she made in the cosy, homely world of Paul & Miriam's flat decorated by their beautiful children is threatened. Louise quickly realises that one day, she will be deemed irrelevant, her services no longer needed & the children will grow up. She must act fast to stop that from happening, to stop her existence from being relegated to that of rotting insignificance. The ending of the book left me reeling for more as we are never given a full picture of what immediate circumstances arose that led to this gruesome act being carried out. I guess the author was intentionally abrupt in her ending as we are left to speculate what drove the nanny to murder.
But they are now plagued by the nanny problem, that is until 'the perfect nanny' arrives on their doorstep as a saviour of all their problems - Louise, a 40 something woman with childlike manners & doll-like porcelain features: her face ageless & graceful.
Paul & Myriam's careers take off: they live in a perfect world but soon their perfect lives are upended when the vengeful nanny murders one of their children, Adam, slashes her wrists & throat & is rendered unconscious in the process. A police investigation is launched, media are at the gates, the cries & helpless gasps of other mothers echo in this quiet, prim & proper, middle-class Paris neighbourhood. The first chapter opens with the murders and for the next 200 pages, we try to solve not the 'whodunit' but the 'why she did it?'
'Lullaby' starts poised with all the right ingredients of a sharp-edged domestic thriller: negligent working parents too consumed by their careers, upper-class neighbours whispering & spying on each other, nannies in the park gossiping openly about their bosses while hiding their secrets, children playing & crying, demanding too much. The novel offers an incisive socioeconomic commentary on the condition of the 'classless' class of immigrants - a whole upstairs/downstairs dynamic a la Downton Abbey - an army of nannies who are coloured, destitute immigrants, who arrive in the 1000s in France from Morocco, Philippines, India & Middle East. All these women - mothers in their homeland, nannies in France suffer from a lack of identity, a sense of place and alienation from the institutions of democracy & liberty that this nation has to offer.
What happens when the only place that Louise has for a home- the one where she is needed-the one she made in the cosy, homely world of Paul & Miriam's flat decorated by their beautiful children is threatened. Louise quickly realises that one day, she will be deemed irrelevant, her services no longer needed & the children will grow up. She must act fast to stop that from happening, to stop her existence from being relegated to that of rotting insignificance. The ending of the book left me reeling for more as we are never given a full picture of what immediate circumstances arose that led to this gruesome act being carried out. I guess the author was intentionally abrupt in her ending as we are left to speculate what drove the nanny to murder.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Child abuse, Deadnaming, Violence, Xenophobia, Murder, and Abandonment
novellenovels's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Violence, and Murder
lani's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Physical abuse, Violence, Blood, and Murder
writtenontheflyleaves's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Lullaby by Leïla Slimani 🔪
🌟🌟🌟
-
I finished this one before work this morning - overall a quick and engaging read but not one that fully captivated me!
-
🔪 The plot: Louise has always seemed like the perfect nanny. She is quiet and efficient and transforms the lives of the families she works for for the better - until the day that she snaps and brutally murders the two children in her care. The novel assembles a fractured picture of the events leading up to the murders; of Louise herself, her employers, and the people drifting on the outskirts of the tragedy, trying to understand what happened.
-
I’m usually a big fan of a mystery told backwards. It’s fun to know the destination but have no idea how you got there, and Lullaby is exceptional in its unravelling of the psychological webs that are woven between the characters. But what undoes this story for me is its ending. It took me by surprise how quickly it seemed to wrap up, and although I love some poignant ambiguity at the end of my novels, I don’t feel like the reader gets a satisfying answer for what drives Louise to such an atrocity. My lasting impression is of a sort of amorphous bleakness - it’s moving in its own way, but not especially satisfying.
-
That said, there were lots of things I thought were masterful here. Slimani is completely unflinching in her portrayal of the power dynamics between employer and employee: the parents’ simultaneous admiration of Louise and their bourgeois disdain for her. There’s something sickening about all of the characters, but they all provoke pathos too, which is a really engaging thing for a thriller like this to do.
-
👩👧👦 Read it if you like character-driven novels that are a bit on the dark side, and aren’t averse to some real open endings.
-
🚫 Avoid it if you like your thrillers to be pacey and have a killer ending (no pun intended).
🌟🌟🌟
-
I finished this one before work this morning - overall a quick and engaging read but not one that fully captivated me!
-
🔪 The plot: Louise has always seemed like the perfect nanny. She is quiet and efficient and transforms the lives of the families she works for for the better - until the day that she snaps and brutally murders the two children in her care. The novel assembles a fractured picture of the events leading up to the murders; of Louise herself, her employers, and the people drifting on the outskirts of the tragedy, trying to understand what happened.
-
I’m usually a big fan of a mystery told backwards. It’s fun to know the destination but have no idea how you got there, and Lullaby is exceptional in its unravelling of the psychological webs that are woven between the characters. But what undoes this story for me is its ending. It took me by surprise how quickly it seemed to wrap up, and although I love some poignant ambiguity at the end of my novels, I don’t feel like the reader gets a satisfying answer for what drives Louise to such an atrocity. My lasting impression is of a sort of amorphous bleakness - it’s moving in its own way, but not especially satisfying.
-
That said, there were lots of things I thought were masterful here. Slimani is completely unflinching in her portrayal of the power dynamics between employer and employee: the parents’ simultaneous admiration of Louise and their bourgeois disdain for her. There’s something sickening about all of the characters, but they all provoke pathos too, which is a really engaging thing for a thriller like this to do.
-
👩👧👦 Read it if you like character-driven novels that are a bit on the dark side, and aren’t averse to some real open endings.
-
🚫 Avoid it if you like your thrillers to be pacey and have a killer ending (no pun intended).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Violence
Moderate: Mental illness, Blood, and Grief
Minor: Racial slurs, Racism, and Suicide
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