Review: Such a Fun Age
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars
4.5 Stars bumped because I just love the sharp edges in this one.
Kiley Reid's Such a Fun Age is a polished debut novel with artful nuance in its ability to address white privilege, socioeconomic class, and the white savior complex.
Emira Tucker is a twenty-five-year-old black woman. She's a graduate of Temple University, struggling economically in her last year on her parent's health insurance, working several jobs. One of those jobs is babysitting Brianna Chamberlain, toddler daughter of Alix (say it with me A-leeeex) Chamberlain. Alix is a woman carving out her place by "standing up for women." At least, that's what Alix believes. Married to newsman Peter, Alix is adjusting to a recent move to Philly, because after she becomes pregnant with her second child, she and Peter have to come to terms with the fact that they just can't afford to live in Manhattan anymore. Alix, who works for the Hillary Clinton campaign, in addition, to having a book in the works, can't come to terms as yet with the fact that she's leaving the Big Apple.
Alix's freedom to travel between Philly and NYC is forged by hiring Emira. On a fateful night, Peter, still finding his footing on his new network, gets targeted for some remarks he makes on the air. The Chamberlain house is egged at 11 pm and he calls the police. The Chamberlains also call Emira to come to get Brianna to just keep her busy while they deal with the police. Emira leaves her friend's birthday party, eager to get the extra pay, and picks up Brianna while still dressed up for her friend's party. They go to a nearby grocery store where Brianna likes to look at nuts. While they are there a white patron and a white security guard question why, at 11 pm at night, Brianna, a white child, is with a black woman who clearly isn't her mother. Things get ugly and another white patron, Kelley, starts video recording the incident. When Mr. Chamberlain arrives to tell off the security guard, Emira is relieved and after a short encounter with Kelley, gets, almost unwillingly, an emailed copy of the video recording which he then promises to delete. Emira wants this little episode over and done. It is, however, anything but. Kelley (a guy), and Alix, both want Emira to go public with the video over the course of the book, though for seemingly different reasons. Emira soon finds herself dating Kelley yet also the subject of fervent interest for Alix, who had barely known anything about Emira before the events unfolded at that grocery store. Emira has been rendered very interesting indeed.
This novel is so light and breezy and initially seems like it has an element of romance and light social commentary to it. Do. Not. Be. Fooled. Reid has fashioned a razor-sharp indictment of the various ways white people make themselves feel better about the black people in their lives and all the ways they "encourage them." By the end of the novel, I loathed Alix and was just shaking my head at Kelley. I will eagerly pick up whatever Kiley Reid writes next. A writer to watch.
The audiobook is smartly narrated by Nicole Lewis. #librofm
I received a Digital Review Copy and a courtesy audiobook copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
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