Such a Fun Age
According to The Atlantic, Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid is, “A funny, fast-paced social satire about privilege in America.” That quote sticks out behind the cover of my edition of the book and frankly, I couldn’t possibly sum it up any better.
In the book, Emira Tucker is confronted at a supermarket while babysitting Alix Chamberlain’s two-year-old daughter. A white woman simply cannot believe that a young Black woman is actually truly for sure supposed to be looking after this white child. Not at this hour of the evening. Not while she’s dressed like that. A security guard accuses Emira of kidnapping Briar Chamberlain and refuses to let her leave the store. When the bystander who films everything turns out to be a person from Alix’s past, Emira gets caught in the middle of two people seemingly desperate to try to prove, to themselves and each other and Emira (and everyone else, I guess?), they aren’t racist.
It feels important for me to admit that I read this with different eyes than if I’d read it when it was brand new in the beginning of 2020. I’m a young white woman who grew up in an incredibly affluent part of the country and have probably been around more Alixes than Emiras in my life. While being a direct mirror of society, the book is also genuinely funny and impossible to put down. It’ll make you go “YIKES!” and *side eye emoji* and “you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
One of the things I really loved about this book was how it jumps between following Emira’s and Alix’s stories. The narrator stays in third-person throughout, but chapters alternate between their worlds. Just when you really want to know how Alix is going to wriggle her way out of a jam you end up plopped in the middle of Emira and her friends. When you want to find out if Emria is really going to have an epiphany about her career and life direction, you’re back in Alix’s kitchen. It’s a big part of what makes the book such a page-turner — because you finish a chapter and then realize you’re going to be thrown back into the other world again.
I finished this book in a day. If you want to read it too you can buy it here or borrow it from your local library.
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