As a person who is not French, I found this book harder to review than I would have thought.

This book follows various au pairs around the time that one of their children die. The book is a study into culture, race and what it's like to be a foreigner png other things.

I think I need to start with that I'm not French nor have I ever been to France and therefore I won't comment on that aspect of the book negatively because it's not anything I've experienced. Despite this, I love the way that the author makes you feel along with these characters like an outsider. I understand their frustration, their wanting to fit in, how conscious they are of other people and the way that they display or don't display their otherness. I felt that out of everything that was my favourite part of the book.

The problem with having a book with different perspectives is that sometimes they seem unnecessary or not as interesting as others and I did feel that here. While I feel like for some characters it was needed for the story to progress, I felt that the details about these characters were boring and I didn't feel particularly attached to that.

This also leads to the ending, I hate the perspective that the book ended off on, I felt like this character was not the strongest or most relevant in the story and when the other part ended I hoped that was the actual end but it was not.

Despite this, the ending itself in terms of the plot was a favourite of mine. The way that things fit together and there were twists that I didn't expect but still were reasonable and made sense to the plot. It did truly keep me guessing.

I did not like, however, that the death of the child was not in focus as much as I would have hoped. It only happened at the very end and it made some bits feel irrelevant because of what is as expected with the story.

Overall I do like the story that was told. I enjoyed myself in parts and I like the way it made me think about my existence. It's a good drama to read during the summer and I would recommend it.

With Paris as the backdrop this book explores what happens when tragedy hits a small community told from the perspectives of a parent, various foreign au pairs, older children and a local French teacher. As the story slowly unfolds the stories become more and more entwined despite the very different back stories of all the narrators. The characters are fully formed and oh so different yet they slot together beautifully like pieces of a puzzle. This is a smooth read with no jarring inconsistencies and while the tragedy remains central the build up to it is very cleverly done with no one big event causing it just a myriad of small decisions taken by different people leading to a terrible conclusion!!

I was expecting a story of au pairs and their respective families living in an apartment, that starts with the death of one the children and works through the back stories of each of the au pairs to eventually reveal what led to the death of the child.
The back stories are long and rambling and it appears the links between them were quite tenuous. It is curious to see house this line of work was seen as a means cheap access to Paris rather than care-giving.
Overall I wouldn’t want any of these young women looking after any child I knew.

The Caretakers starts with the death of a young boy and his au-pair is blamed for killing him. The premise was exciting and interesting and hooked me straight away.

It follows several characters with the story told from all of their perspectives and jumps backwards and forwards in time a lot which I found quite hard to keep track of as it would often happen within the same page.

It was an interesting look at French culture, the relationship between mother and child - and what it’s like to be an au-pair in a country you feel as though you don’t “belong” in.

My only real criticism is that I found it was too long, and there were a couple of unnecessary characters that added nothing to the story and there wasn’t really any need to go into their backstory. My personal preference is short chapters as I think they keep a stories pace and get you hooked quicker but the chapters in this book were very very long.

One of the most compelling thrillers I've read in 2022. Page-turning and truly unputdownable, The Caretakers is an immersive story of a young boy's death told from the point of view of several woman involved. Bestor-Siegal effortlessly conjures up vivid scenes of Paris and draws you in to the world of these au pairs. I absolutely loved it, highly recommend this goes to the top of your TBR pile.

I understand this is the author's first novel and woud like to praise Amanda for the maturity of her writing as well as her unique approach. She doesn't try to 'educate' the reader about French culture in a patronising way, (a trap which would be easy to fall into) but manages to impart a number of well-observed nuggets! As a former au pair in France myself, the plot summary of 'The Caretakers' immediately appealed to me. Unless a person has actually had experience of this type of work, it is difficult to convey the loneliness, challenges and also privilege it provides. Amanda Bestor-Siegal does an excellent job of conveying some of the gritty realities but without hyberbole and with a lot of balance..

As others have stated, the story is told from the perspectives of a number of characters, although not in the first person. With the exception of Lou, they each only have one narrative and it is through them that we learn what has happened to Julien Chauvet. I was initially intrigued in discovering the truth about the boy and whether Alena is indeed to blame but as I read further, I became increasingly interested in the individual stories too. Amanda manages to perfectly conjur up the communication difficulties between loved ones and strangers alike, She voices thoughts we all have when interacting with others and illustrates the disparity between what we know we should do or what we actually want to do yet still choose the wrong path.

I really enjoyed reading The Caretakers and hope Amanda is working on her next book! Highly recommended.

Thank you for the opportunity to read 'The Caretakers'.

This was an interesting novel set in Paris revolving around a murder of a young boy and the lives of a group of au-pairs. There were a lot of characters in the book and it was a little difficult at times to keep up with who was who. However, it was well-written and I could empathise with the young au-pairs in a foreign environment.

Oh dear - I was tempted to read this with the promise of a murder, Paris and au pairs. True I got all of this but it did not work for me. It is incredibly, unnecessarily long. There is a huge cast of characters - we are treated to all of their back stories - some of which seem completely irrelevant to the story. Holly? Geraldine? Don't care - what do they contribute?

The moment of peril, when it finally arrives, is a huge anticlimax. There is a last ditch attempt to bring in an attempt at mystery, it isn't even a plot twist, more of an 'there is an extra character here who hasn't done much - quick give them a role'. So all in all, a very slow build up to a death which you know is going to happen right from the start - the opposite of a thriller really.

In a wealthy Parisian suburb, many families have au pairs. One of the au pairs is Alena, a brooding, surly young woman who keeps herself to herself and doesn't mix much with the other au pairs. The boy she looks after is Julien and at the beginning of the book, he is found dead and Alena is being charged with his murder. We then are told the story from several points of view including those of some of the au pairs and some of the Parisian women until we find out what happened.

This is a well-written, readable book which touches on many themes, the main one being how too often we don't communicate properly with each other and how this affects relationships. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The Caretakers is an ambitious book, introducing us to cultural shifts between contemporary Paris and US American settings. The novel shines a spotlight on a group of young American au pairs and the suburban French mothers who employ them to look after their offspring. It opens with the death of one of the children, Julien, but the precise circumstances of his death and whether his au pair Alena was involved are not revealed until the end of the novel. What is laid bare pretty early on in the novel, however, is the worrying lack of genuine warmth and engagement between the oblivious au pairs and the children they have been entrusted with. Surprisingly, rather than the young children who need it, it is the au pairs who receive emotional support, dished out by their French teacher Geraldine who mothers these immature young women. I found her character intriguing, but the two characters I found most compelling in the end were Alena, whose intricate backstory is unravelled as the novel proceeds, and her host Charlotte, who is fighting her own complex demons. That the author manages to cram so many contemporary topics into the pages of one book – suburban isolation, betrayal, xenophobia, culture clashes and much more – is a testament to her writing abilities. A novel that deserves to enjoy a wider readership – and one I was privileged to read early, thanks to an ARC granted by the publishers and NetGalley in exchange for this unbiased review.

These six intertwining stories of women drew me in from the very start. An insight into the world of au-pairs and host families and essentially how we treat people that both live and work in our homes.

Based in a wealthy Parisian suburb this story centres around various Au Pairs working in homes there.

A boy is killed but who is to blame, the Au Pair or the mother who hardly played a part in her son's life.

This sounded really promising & I was looking forward to reading but sadly didn't deliver for me. I felt the chapters were very long & there were too many characters who in my opinion didn't have much to do with the story.

As always am grateful to have been given the chance to read this in advance of general release.

I went into this novel thinking it was going to a mystery, an ode to the city of lights and much more but it's really a commentary about the role of the au=pair, of American au=pairs who are trying to find their role in a new country. I thought Paris would feature prominently but this book could be set anywhere there are American au-pairs to be fair. There are some peculiarities that are notably French and it was interesting to see how they all formed a kind of expat club when abroad. However the central mystery and story of a boy in someone's care being killed in some way and the au pair getting led away was lost to me and although I found it in the end, it was like sorting through your Christmas lights that had become knotted from the year before.

I absolutely loved this thrilling novel that fully kept me guessing throughout, keeping me guessing at each and every turn of the page.

I felt this book took too long to get to the point of explaining what happened,and why the au pair was a suspect.
It filled pages with lives of people that were either not very nice,or not very interesting.
Just not for me.

This is an incredibly poignant book, packed with intricate, true characterisations. As someone who worked abroad for a year, I really identified with the feelings of the au pairs and the loneliness of never quite fitting in. The plot was intriguing enough to keep me enthralled whilst not detracting from the depth and stories of the characters. A really well-written book.

I really liked the premise of this book, which lets us experience life from the perspective of au-pairs living with hist families in Paris.

I found it easiest to invest in the story of Alena's host family. Charlotte, her husband Simon and their three children. The author really seemed to get inside the character of Charlotte. When she discovers her husband is having an affair, she feels it gives her permission to sleep with her neighbour. Their eldest son Victor has been involved in a serious accident leaving him scarred, teenage Natalie has issues of her own and the youngest, Julien is described as being a handful. When one of the family is involved in a tragic accident, Alena gets the blame.

I liked the friendship between the au-pairs and their mentor, Geraldine. She teaches them French but seems to also act as a surrogate mother.

The author chose to write from the perspective of many different characters, in addition to alternating between the past and present. I think there was a whole novel in there just with Charlotte's family. There was lots of information for the reader to take in- things like Alena's backstory and I'm not sure some of it was necessary.

It was an enjoyable read and I will look out for more by this author.

Thanks indeed to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

A story with so many themes neatly brought together, told and retold through each of the characters. A strong example of how it takes the perspectives of many to gain a truer identity of someone and of how common traits of love, trust, home and insecurity play a part in the back story of so many.

I got an advance copy of this after asking for it, just because it was set in Paris. I had no expectations at all and it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It is a very readable book that really plays on the differences between American and French society. You can see the author spent time in France and has first hand experience of what exactly the role and status of an au pair is within a French family. She uses the different points of view to her advantage and together they make for an intelligently written commentary on this particular phenomenon. Being an outsider is never easy and all the characters in this story are outsiders in their own way, even the employer and her daughter. All of it makes for a very good read. An intelligent debut.

This was a case of wrong book at the wrong time for me I think. I wanted a suspenseful mystery. This is not that. It’s a snap shot of various people that live and work in a Parisian suburb.