[Review] Such a Fun Age - Kiley Reid

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,” the complicated reality of being a grown up, and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reason. (Pub Date: Dec 31, 2019)

Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

This is a story about agency, but also about prejudice and everything surrounding it.

Emira is falsely accused of kidnapping the child she babysits while taking her to a convenience store. This issue is solved when the father comes to clear it all up, but it provokes a cascade of changes that affects not only Emira, bringing a new boyfriend into her life, along with all the headache, but also Alix, her boss who feels guilty for what happened and wants to make amends.

This is a book hard to summarize because what I enjoyed about it was the feelings it provoked in me. Emira is kind of lost now she's graduated from college and can't find a permanent job. Alix ended up moving out of New York and until the incident, she hadn't noticed how numb to everything she had become. While Emira tries to navigate through all the changes to keep her job, Alix becomes obsessed to the extreme.

I'm not sure I can call the development believable, but the way Alix reacted was so oddly funny, I'd say my morbid curiosity turned the pages for me and I finished this book way too fast because I couldn't stop. The plot is very different but the feeling is comparable to what Liane Moriarty's books make me feel.

The most interesting bit of this read, for me, was how the book makes you take a side, if Emira should side with Alix or with her boyfriend.

However, I think the last part of the book, though it was an excellent conclusion, lost steam. I still enjoyed this way too much and will recommend to anyone who likes weird characters. I'm definitely reading more from this author.

Rating: 4 out of 5.