Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
Another pick by Reese’s Book Club that I couldn’t NOT stop listening to once I started.
My Hollywood BFF (who doesn’t know it 🤣) did it AGAIN by picking this powerful, stand out debut novel by author Kiley Reid.
Okay yall…there is a BUNCH to unpack here…. but first I will give you the official summary:
A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains’ toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store’s security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.
But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix’s desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix’s past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.
With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone “family,” and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.”
One word I would use to describe this book is ENTERTAINING…
There was humor, heart felt moments, page turning plot twists, and fascinating character development.
This was a novel where the characters are brought to vivid life…you can feel their feelings…you can see their appearance….
Those things made this an extremely well written page turner.
BUT…
more importantly a word I would use to describe this book is “thought provoking”.
There was a pretty deep examination of race, class, and identity of self and society as a whole.
Hidden biases brought to light, unfair societal advantages revealed…
And at the same time, the book had plenty of fun times with girlfriends to have you laughing, celebratory life acheivement moments to have you hooray-ing, and even some cute little “toddler-isms” to have your heart melting.
To be able to combine ALLLL that in ONE book…..
THAT is some kind of creative writing genius TALENT.
I am HERE for Kiley Reid, yall.
The wealthy, self made female character of Alix (pronounced “uh-leeks”….yeah..just as pretentious as it sounds…because she AIN’T FRENCH, yall…she literally changed the spelling of her name to be ALIX 🙄) really embodies the whole performative self identified “woke ally” that seems to overcome SO many of us white American women.
(and yes…I do in fact say “us”…because even though I am in NO WAY wealthy, I am MOST DEFINITELY a white woman and can NOT separate myself from many of her shameful actions that take place, even though I DESPERATELY want to…)
Because Alix aligns herself with the “right” community organizations, knows “politically correct” terms, and has close friends and relationships with people who are NOT white, she considers herself a “good” white person without a racist bone or thought in her body.
And the white people with “good intentions” are usually the ones that can cause the MOST damage.
(Alix’s character reminds me a WHOLE LOT of the character Elena from the book/Hulu series “Little Fires Everywhere”…..if you haven’t read the book yet, DO IT…and THEN watch the series…I just started the series a couple days ago and am curious to see how the book correlates to the screen…so far I’m impressed…. okay…back to the review at hand…)
Casual racism that is accepted in daily society is always catastrophic…and layers of it unravel on the pages of this book…the deep down biases we carry, the white savior narrative we buy into…it all comes pouring out in an all too familiar and uncomfortably realistic way.
Even though there are problematic and triggering characters embedded in this story, the author really has you develop empathy for EVERY single character described in one way or another at some point along in the book.
This talented author has a way to make you truly feel for and relate to EACH CHARACTER in one way or another…you find something that connects you to every single one.
Like I said before….creative writing GENIUS.
The character of Emira is one of many complexities…I appreciate so much how the realness of her struggles, frustrations and celebrations is written with such emotional and natural vulnerability.
The strength she has in her self realization journey of discovering what she really wants out of life and who she really is was amazing….I appreciate the author’s authenticity in her descriptions of this young, black American woman in her mid 20s just trying to figure out what path she desires to be on, who she desires to be with as she walks down it and what she lets define it along the way.
Frustrating part of the book…Alix really DOES want the best for Emira and also for her family, but I think underlying all her love and affection, her most driving force in her actions are always ALWAYS self serving….even though most of the time I don’t even think she realizes it.
Even when her behavior is deceitful and damaging to Emira as well as her own family members…and she is TOLD DIRECTLY of this…she literally can not see beyond her own lens, break down her own hypocrisy and acknowledge her own faults.
WHEW, yall.
Talk about some CONVICTING REMINDERS for myself, FOR REAL.
“Such A Fun Age” is truly SUCH A FANTABULOUS book.
Such a super read..
Go get it….NOOOOOWWWW.