THE MANNY

Author: Holly Peterson ISBN: 9780385340489 6/2008 CHICK LIT Publisher: BALLANTINE

What’s a Park Avenue working mom to do when her troubled son desperately needs a male role model and her husband is a power workaholic? If she’s like the gutsy heroine of Holly Peterson’s astute new comedy of manners among the ill-mannered elite, she does what every other woman on the block does. She hires herself a “manny.” A solid middle-class girl from Middle America, Jamie Whitfield isn’t “one of them” but she lives in “the Grid,” the wealthiest acre of real estate in Manhattan, where big money and big media collide. And she has most everything they have—a big new apartment, full-time help with her three children, as well as her very own detached Master of the Universe attorney husband. What she doesn’t have, however, is a full-time father figure for their struggling nine-year-old son, Dylan. But the rich haven’t yet encountered a problem they can’t hire someone else to solve. Enter the manny. At first the idea of paying a man to provide a role model for Dylan sounds too crazy to be true. But one look at Peter Bailey is enough to convince Jamie that the idea may not be quite so insane after all. Peter is calm, cool, competent, and so charmingly down-to-earth, he’s irresistible. And with the political sex scandal of the decade propelling her career as a news producer into overdrive, and her increasingly erratic husband locked in his study with suspicious files, Jamie is in serious need of some grounding. Peter reminds her of everything she once was, still misses, and underneath all the high-society glitz, still is. But will the new manny in her life put the ground back beneath her feet, or sweep her off them?

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Holly Peterson sets her chick lit, THE MANNY, in the tiny "grid" of millionaires living near Central Park in New York City, where Jamie is a producer for a network TV news program and her blue blood husband, Phillip, is an attorney who feels that despite the fact that they own an expensive apartment, a beach house, send the kids to expensive private schools, and sit on the boards of charities, that they just don't have enough money, prestige and status. Jamie and Phillip are having a hard time balancing family with work. When their oldest son, nine-year old Dylan, freaks out at a school basketball game, Jamie hires a manny for him to do all that guy stuff that Phillip never has time for.

Peterson brilliantly creates characters that are full featured and entirely believable. Jamie has been promising herself that this is the year she'll leave Phillip, but she's afraid of turning everything upside down for the kids. Phillip is just a big temper tantrum throwing baby who hates it when teeny things go wrong in his world. Jamie puts up with his belittling remarks about her weight (maybe 5 pounds extra) and never shows up for kid events. Jamie has her flaws, but she lives for her kids.

I fell in love with the manny, Peter Bailey, right from the start! He's a software designer working on his own creation and kind of in a holding pattern waiting for investment money to come through. Jamie finds him teaching kids how to play chess in the park, and in a moment of inspiration can see him bringing Dylan back out of his shell. Peter seems to be just what the doctor ordered.

This is mostly a story of relationships, though there is a modicum of sex in various forms sprinkled throughout. Jamie is still trying to work things out with Phillip, so there are intimate moments; Jamie is working on a big breaking story about a sex scandal with a senator and a young waitress; Phillip is having a fling with Jamie's friend, Susannah; and Jamie and Peter are growing into great friends with the potential for true love.

The plot moves along at a rapid clip. It is easy to read and gives a fun glimpse into the television news rat race.

I recommend THE MANNY to any reader who likes a good story with well-rounded characters. The only thing that didn't work for me was that the book had a last page.

Susan Barton