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29th out of 32 books
—
3 voters
Who Loves You Best
by
Tess Stimson
An unforgettable story about the complex choices women make for love, motherhood, and family—and the unexpected events that open our hearts to what really matters in life.
Clare Elias feels more than ready to conquer being a parent. She’s already mastered the business world, running a flourishing chain of boutique flower shops. Her husband, Marc, is handsome, successful, s...more
Clare Elias feels more than ready to conquer being a parent. She’s already mastered the business world, running a flourishing chain of boutique flower shops. Her husband, Marc, is handsome, successful, s...more
Paperback, 368 pages
Published
August 3rd 2010
by Bantam
(first published January 1st 2009)
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Clare, 37 years old is married to Marc who is rich, handsome and 10 years younger to her. After putting off for 7 years (to focus on her career) she has given birth to two lovely babies.
Her hunky dory life goes for a toss when she realizes what baby care is all about and is on the brink of cracking up when Jenna enters in their life.
Jenna the nanny is a young, beautiful, bright girl who is running away from an abusive relationship. She blends into the household and takes over the caring of kids...more
Her hunky dory life goes for a toss when she realizes what baby care is all about and is on the brink of cracking up when Jenna enters in their life.
Jenna the nanny is a young, beautiful, bright girl who is running away from an abusive relationship. She blends into the household and takes over the caring of kids...more
Dit is een heerlijk boek voor tussendoor en een lekkere warme dag. In het begin zul je moeten wennen aan de schrijfstijl omdat het verhaal uit meerdere perspectieven wordt verteld. Je leest over het huwelijk van Marc en Clare. Clare is een succes volle zakenvrouw. Ze heeft meerdere bloemen filialen en haar man Mark werkt bij een bank. Als de tweeling wordt geboren zit Clare met haar handen in het haar want ze heeft het gevoel dat ze het niet aan kan. Ze besluit een kindermeisje te huren. In het...more
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I have to admit, I bought this book because of the cute little booties on the cover. I have a thing with books about babies and pregnancy. This time, I'm glad I did because this book turned out to be way better than I imagined. With the dramatic endings of chapters, Tess Stimson made me want to keep reading... I could barely put the book down for a second. With love, comes marriage, and hopefully a little baby in a carriage, but instead of becoming pregnant with just one child, Clare, our main c...more
This was a book club pick and it was more intriguing and darker than I expected. I think the publishing house did the author a huge disservice with the title and the cover, which indicates amusing, sweet chick lit where it’s really closer to women’s fiction.
This book follows new mom-to-twins Clare and her nanny Jenna. For the most part, that is. Sometimes we get a chapter from the husband, Clare’s mother, and various and sundry other people. Some of the head-hopping was unnecessary. It works at...more
This book follows new mom-to-twins Clare and her nanny Jenna. For the most part, that is. Sometimes we get a chapter from the husband, Clare’s mother, and various and sundry other people. Some of the head-hopping was unnecessary. It works at...more
The idea behind this story is a good one and intriguing which is why I picked it up. However it can be a bit difficult to get through especially with the few chapters told from the male character's POVs and I only say that because they seem unneceesary since they are only 5 chapters total out of the book and the seeds planted there never fully get deveoped (such as Xan's story).
It's painful sometimes to read Clare and how naive she is not so much with her kids as with her overall life (case in...more
It's painful sometimes to read Clare and how naive she is not so much with her kids as with her overall life (case in...more
This is the story of Clare, a successful owner of several flower stores and a new mother to twin babies. To cope, Clare hires a live in nanny, Jenna, and the story unfolds from there. Clare's husband Marc resents Jenna in their home, Jenna has an abusive boyfriend, Clare finds out that Marc has been using their mortgage as collateral on speculative stock market trades, and one of the babies becomes dangerously ill.
The book is written from alternating character's perspective; it's well structure...more
The book is written from alternating character's perspective; it's well structure...more
I really liked this book... but felt that something was missing. The characters were all very whitty butt at times I had a hard time connecting with them. Some of the language was VERY crude. Then at times I was totally engrossed in the story and couldn't wait to get to the next page. It was definitely a good read but felt it was lacking in some areas. Jenna and Clare are the two main characters in this book. Jenna is the nanny to Clare's twin babies. Here is one of my favorite passages of this...more
This book really demonstrates that the phrase 'the grass is always greener on the other side' is not true by any standards. The main characters in the book are Clare and accomplished woman who owns multiple flower stores that she has built up on her own. The other character is Jenna a girl with potential to succeed, but life has dealt her a hard hand and she's stuck taking care of her low-life boyfriend and working as a nanny.
Each of these girls thinks that the other has it easier, until the end...more
Each of these girls thinks that the other has it easier, until the end...more
This book was truly amazing. Stimson struck chord after countless chord on so many relevant issues--the bittersweet days of early motherhood (including a very real look at the hotbed of the choice/capacity to breastfeed), struggles to balance career and family, the differing societal expectations placed on women vs. men, the choice to love someone despite their asterisks, the pain between desperately needing help while striving for independent perfectionism, our yen for closure...I was wowed.
Mor...more
Mor...more
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Jul 28, 2011
Anne
added it
I enjoyed this book, but didn't love it. It was presented as a story of a new mother trying to balance career, motherhood, and marriage. It was that, but it involved far more twists, turns, and outside drama than I was expecting. In addition, the ending just felt rushed.
But on the positive side, I really enjoyed the way the author didn't just tell the story from multiple points of view chapter by chapter, but repeated some events so you could see them through multiple points of view. It was done...more
But on the positive side, I really enjoyed the way the author didn't just tell the story from multiple points of view chapter by chapter, but repeated some events so you could see them through multiple points of view. It was done...more
I won this as a Goodreads Giveaway.
This is a "mommy lit" about a successful career woman who has twins. Predictably, the twins aren't as easy to manage as her business and she falls into a depression. The book is told from several different points of view (mostly the mother and the nanny she eventually hires) and that keeps the story moving along easily. I liked the occasional introduction of a "source document" (letters from one character to another, an old newspaper clipping, etc) which added...more
This is a "mommy lit" about a successful career woman who has twins. Predictably, the twins aren't as easy to manage as her business and she falls into a depression. The book is told from several different points of view (mostly the mother and the nanny she eventually hires) and that keeps the story moving along easily. I liked the occasional introduction of a "source document" (letters from one character to another, an old newspaper clipping, etc) which added...more
This is a story about the complex choices women make for motherhood love and family. Claire met and married Marc a younger man she has a successful business . Marc has his own career, than Claire has twins and thats when the trouble begins . Marc feels she should stay home and care for the babies . Claire hires Jenna the perfect nanny. Claire has no idea the problems this will cause . Marc becomes distant and secretive than poppy gets sick . And they think Claire is responsible, Marc does some u...more
De nieuwe nanny is puur chicklit. Het is geschreven in wisselende perspectieven en hierdoor dacht ik, dat dit boek niets voor mij zou zijn. Ik heb daar dus even aan moeten wennen, maar al snel las het erg vlotjes weg. Af en toe is het wat aan de groffe kant, maar dat mag ik zo nu en dan wel ;-) Het boek gaat grotendeels over het huwelijk van Clare en Marc, waar de nieuwe nanny Jenna een rol in speelt, maar niet zoals op de flaptekst vermeld staat. Desondanks heb ik het boek wel met plezier gelez...more
Clare Elias has the perfect life. A successful, loving husband (maybe), a thriving business selling flowers (almost), and she is expecting her first (and second?!) child. What more could an independent, capable woman ask for?
Perhaps a nanny.
Jenna joins Clare's family to care for the new twins in what seems like the perfect situation (but not quite). Jenna's abusive boyfriend is becoming more and more needy and Clare can't seem to break up with him, so living with Clare and her family simultaneou...more
Perhaps a nanny.
Jenna joins Clare's family to care for the new twins in what seems like the perfect situation (but not quite). Jenna's abusive boyfriend is becoming more and more needy and Clare can't seem to break up with him, so living with Clare and her family simultaneou...more
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This was an excellent read. The story gripped me right from the beginning. My only hangup was...I am turned off by certain words that British authors use very fluently. Cl*t, C*nt, C*ck...all words that give me the shivers. There is one scene, fairly early into the book, where Ms. Stimson refers to the Heroine's husband "lapping at her cl*toris" that made me squirm a bit. BUT....that aside, the story was brilliant and well told, and I was hooked. THis is a must read for the non-verbage-sensitive...more
I found this to be an enjoyable book of chick lit although when I reserved it at the library I was under the impression it was going to be suspenseful, so in that sense I was disappointed. This is the story of a Type A, successful woman who has given birth to twins and is overwhelmed with the reality. It is told in the point-of-view of the mother, husband and nanny. Some conversations were repeated in subsequent chapters as viewed by a different character which at first threw me but I got used t...more
I got this book from a friend who read it. At first I couldn't figure out all of the characters, but once I got into each chapter by each character, it was a fun read. I love these English writers and the books that they write. Jenna is a nanny who is hired by Clare to care for her twins. As the story unfolds, Clare's marriage unravels which leads to a mysterious trip to Lebanon where her husband descends from and has taken one of the twins. Exciting, a little romance, funny. I really liked this...more
What I thought would be a run-of-the-mill chick-lit book was a real page-turner. When you set out to read it, you think it's all surface-stuff about how a new mom manages having a nanny in her family's life and where she fits in now that there's a nanny around. But it goes a bit deeper than that. Told from various points of view (the husband, the wife, the nanny, the wife's mother and the wife's brother) it keeps you hooked, wondering just how everything--and everyone--is going to turn out. I've...more
I read this in two days. This book was awesome. It was written so well, and it was so different from any other book I have ever read. Each chapter was written in a different character's point of view of the same scenes. I loved it, loved it, loved it!! I hated the hubby in the book. I loved the other characters. Please read this book!!! It really made me think about how things happen and how I "see" things vs. how other people see things, people I love and care about. The interactions between th...more
This is one of those books that I am still not sure how I feel about it. We follow Clare having twins and her relationship with her nanny Jenna. Doing daycare, I understand the dynamics between a mother and a caregiver and the jealousy that springs up. It fluctuated back and forth between the voices of Clare, Jenna, Clare's husband Marc, brother Xan and mother Davina. Sometimes the characters were very unlikeable and it was hard to care what way things would play out and it takes a very bad turn...more
Solid chick lit told from the viewpoints of at least six characters about a woman, Clare, who is overwhelmed after the birth of twins. She hires Jenna as a nanny and tries to regain some control over her life at home and work. Things spiral out of control when one of the children becomes critically ill and having the nanny doesn't really alleviate the tension caused by the invasion of the twins.
This was a great book that kept my attention and had me flipping pages from the start. When a career-minded woman decides to have a baby, there are a lot of changes in her life that she's anticipating. When the baby turns into twins, there are a lot of changes she's not sure that she can handle. Its a testament to those who are/were unsure whether they can handle having a child and whether those maternal instincts come naturally. Sometimes they don't. Still, through the challenges of being a new...more
This book was not a quick read, as I'm not used to English-speak, but I found it intriguing and hard to put down. The last quarter of the book was a bit too far-fetched for me and I really hated the ending...that being said, I loved the characters, the character flaws and the weaved storylines...I'll read from this author again.
I stumbled across this on vacation and ended up reading it in just one day. Maybe a bit far-fetched at points, but the fact that it is told from several perspectives seems to make it more relatable (you can see how people misunderstood situations, etc). I'll definitely try another of Stimson's novels.
This book was really enjoyable and quick. I did sort of feel like it was three different stories jammed into one, and left some situations unresolved. The writing was good, however I'm pretty offended by curse words and this book had wayyy more than was necessary in my opinion. At one point, she referred to a man's private areas as his "lunchbox" which was pretty disturbing. Haha. Overall, it was pretty good!
I picked this up as a cheap read from the target clearance shelf. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. I think we can all find at least a few little parts of ourselves in both the female leads, and the ending didn't tie everything all up neat and tidy.
Clearly there were flaws in the timing of the novel - The entire book supposedly takes place within 6-7 months which is outrageous for the kind of character changes that take place.
That being said- the characterization between mom and nanny and their individual challenges are rather insightful.
I thought some of the 'action' was a bit forced and could have resolved/revealed itself in a less dramatic "Hollywood" way. But I forgave that detail because sometimes- I watch tv that requires me to sus...more
That being said- the characterization between mom and nanny and their individual challenges are rather insightful.
I thought some of the 'action' was a bit forced and could have resolved/revealed itself in a less dramatic "Hollywood" way. But I forgave that detail because sometimes- I watch tv that requires me to sus...more
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Tess Stimson frequently contributes to newspapers and women's magazines. Born in England, she graduated from Oxford before working as a television news producer. Stimson is also the author of The Adultery Club, One Good Affair, and Who Loves You Best. She lives in Vermont with her family, and is currently at work on her next novel, What’s Yours Is Mine, which will be published in 2011.
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Nov 21, 2010 06:47pm