Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A contemporary take on race relations and media-culture. A well-to-do white woman named Alix Chamberlain – who has made a name for herself giving workshops on cover-letter writing, interviewing and confidence-building for young women – hires a sitter for her two-year old daughter, Briar. Emira Tucker is young, black, and college-educated, but has no idea what to do with her life – she currently works as a transcriber and part-time sitter for Briar. Emira genuinely loves Briar, who is loud and socially awkward, and hardly meets Alix’s expectations for the ideal child. One evening when Alix asks Emira to take Briar to a grocery store late at night to get the child out of the house, a suspicious shopper summons the security guard, who accuses Emira of taking the child. A stand-off takes place, of a type all too common today: Emira holding the child and trying to explain herself, while the guard detains her “because the safety of a child is at risk” (14). Another man catches the encounter on his cell phone.

The remainder of the novel unfolds from this event. Alix becomes suddenly obsessed with trying to be Emira’s friend and making her part of the family – raising old stereotypes of the black “help.” Emira accidentally runs into the man who took the cell video, a good-looking white guy and successful businessman named Kelley, who happens to have a history with black friends and black women. Alix, Emira, Briar, and Kelley’s relationships become inextricably entangled – and the question of whether to release the video on social media keeps popping up.

I found this novel to be entertaining, sometimes amusing, and often unsettling. The dialogue, especially between Emira and her friends, is lively and engaging. But it was difficult to like the main characters, besides Emira and Briar; Emira, perhaps purposely, comes across as rather passive – pushed into action at the end by her best-friend Zara. Unlike Alix, though, she has the ability to let things go, and move on.




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