Alice McDermott's narrator is a 15-year-old girl who has two qualities that give her access to the secret lives of adults: she's beautiful, and she looks after their children. Her beauty has already shaped her life. Her parents have moved the family to the east end of Long Island in hopes of finding her a wealthy husband, or at least a fancy crowd to run with. Here she babysits the children of the rich, whose fathers demonstrate their relative decency by making passes at her, or not. The novel spans a dreamy summer as our heroine spends her days with her various charges at the beach, happily leading her crew on home-grown, rather sweet adventures.

Pjmom8025 saw this book on my wish list and offered to send it to me. Thank you so much!

The touching story of a teenage girl and her relationship with Daisy, her fragile eight-year-old cousin, who comes to spend a few weeks on Long Island.

Picked this book up today at my Dr's office. Kaiser, Vanderbuilt. I am almost thru the complete book. It is a very interesting book of a 15 year old teenager in Long Island. Seeing life and people thru her eyes. Her experieces and reactions to her younger cousin and others she does odd jobs for. 6/23/06 at approximately 1:30 pm, fouth floor, Internal Medicine