By Lorrie Moore

College freshman Tassie Keltjin is thrilled to have escaped her parent’s potato farm for university life.  She loves everything about college,   the professor who wears a jeans and a tie to class, the student’s chattering about Bach, Beck ,and bacterial warfare in the hallways, even her largely absent roommate, Murph. For Tassie, this new world is a “brilliant city life of books and films and witty friends.”

But in order to continue to enjoy the college experience, Tassie needs a job. And her nanny job proves to be more educational than anything she learns on campus.

Tassie is clever, self deprecating, and woefully naïve. Her favorite response whenever she is at a loss is, “sounds good,” which even she knows is a lie.  She is both more and less astute than she gives herself credit for. Her relationship with her boyfriend is an instance of cluelessness on a monumental scale. But after professing to have no childcare skills, she is a  creative and caring nanny.  

As the year progresses, her employers become more mysterious, their daughter more dear , and her boyfriend more reluctant. Things seem different back on the family farm too. When tragedy strikes both home fronts, Tassie is devastated. Upon her return to the university , she takes a job at Starbucks (our modern day sanctuary) and carries on, certainly more astute than a year earlier.  “Sounds good,”   however, is no longer a part of Tassie’s vocabulary.  

I loved this book—smart, lyrical, funny.

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