I couldn’t resist picking up this book, the current number-one bestseller at Amazon.com, with its billing as a satirical expose of the child-rearing habits of upper crust New Yorkers with far, far more money than decency. I sat down with it expecting a fast and funny read. While it was quick, often humorous, and addictively readable, I was left feeling sad and depressed, knowing that there really are children whose parents are as horrifyingly self-absorbed and useless as the parents in this book.

The authors have both been actual nannies, and while they are careful to include a disclaimer at the front of the book that all the people portrayed are fictional, I’m sure that the family and the events portrayed are a distillation of the best “nanny horror stories” from their own experiences and those of their cohorts. The protagonist is known only as Nanny, and her employers are the X’s. Mr. X is a rarely seen Wall Street businessman, and Mrs. X is present all too often, with endless orders, errands, and carping criticisms for Nanny. Together these two will probably get my vote for best villain in next year’s Reader’s Poll.

In the midst of his parents’ self-centered chaos is Nanny’s charge, the 4-year-old Grayer. Despite his parents’ failings, so far Grayer is turning out to be a sweet child, mostly due to a succession of caregivers. His parents’ main preoccupation (besides getting him into the best preschool) is to keep him so over-scheduled (everything from swimming to French to “Mommy and Me” sessions that are attended by nannies and kids) that they rarely have to interact with him.

Although Nanny recognizes very early on that her relationship with the X’s is nightmarish, and that Mrs. X has no concept of boundaries when it comes to her employees’ personal lives, she needs the money to finish her last year at NYU, and she quickly comes to care deeply for Grayer. As the year winds on and the X’s demands become ever more jaw-droppingly outrageous, Nanny keeps getting in deeper because Grayer needs her, particularly as his parents’ relationship (such as it is) begins an inevitable downward spiral.

I could not stop turning the pages of this book. Just when I thought it could not get any worse, the X’s would top themselves – making Nanny dress in a Teletubby costume to accompany Grayer to a Halloween party; calling her a dozen times before 10 AM on New Years’ Day because their holiday trip was cancelled and they are desperate to foist Grayer off on someone; disappearing completely and leaving Nanny to deal with Grayer’s 104-degree fever. And it gets even worse than that!

Although the book is deliberately cartoonish in its character development, drawing characters in broad, shallow strokes, I became involved nonetheless. I often wanted to shake Nanny for putting up with her treatment, but I sympathized with her situation and ached for innocent poor-little-rich-boy Grayer just as Nanny did. The few scenes of Nanny with her friends, potential boyfriend, and family added refreshing moments of sanity, particularly when Nanny takes Grayer to hang out with her grandmother on a day when Mrs. X’s pretentious carryings-on become too much.

The Nanny Diaries balances humorous moments with purely rage-provoking ones, suspense (will Nanny reveal what she knows about what Mr. X is up to with a new mistress?) with pathos (as Grayer insists on wearing his increasingly absent father’s tie and tattered business card everywhere he goes). It zips along, dropping names from Chanel to F.A.O. Schwarz to Manolo Blahnik in the best tradition of the cheerfully junky “the rich are different” genre.

The attraction of this book is definitely akin to what makes us rubberneck highway pileups or train wrecks. I couldn’t look away, wondering how bad it would get before Nanny finally quit, and longing for these horrible people to get the comeuppance they so deserved. The final explosions are curiously muted, though – appropriately. I imagine that when this book becomes a movie (and I’m sure it will) they will change the ending to make it more triumphant. They shouldn’t. It’s not as though a mere nanny, even “Nanny,” could really change any of these people.

Thus the rather depressed feeling when I finished the book. Still, I enjoyed it, and certainly found it readable. You could spend a day at the beach with a worse book.