A review by bklassen
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

emotional hopeful informative reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 

I heard this book described this as a “cracking good read” and I could not agree more. Kiley Reid expertly crafts a sort of tug of rope over Emira, the babysitter. I had a sort of sick relationship with the messed up power dynamics and game of “who’s lying” between Alix (Emira’s white and well-to-do employer and mother of 2 who is struggling with writing her book) and Kelley (her new, older white boyfriend who has a less than reputable relationship with Alix from high school and also a history of fetishizing black people. 

There’s so much in this book that is just bonkers bananas. It felt like reading Big Little Lies or Little Fires Everywhere in that there’s all this drama and hidden agendas and everything, but in a way that I didn’t mind reading! The ambiguity of both Kelley and Alix was fantastic, and it sets up some fantastic tension. 

Besides the relationship drama, race is the elephant in the room, except that Kiley Reid shines a big ole spotlight on it. It clouds every interaction in this book because Emira is black and her race affects every interaction she has in the world. There are some incredible portrayals of micro aggressions throughout this story, and many of us white folk will recognize either ourselves in Alix or know someone quite a lot like Alix, like when she asks her one black friend about Emira as if black people are a monolith or convincing herself that she wants the best for Emira when she’s clearly ignoring boundaries and not recognizing the fraught relationship between the BIPOC community and the police, even if she thought she was doing the right thing. 

However, Kiley is ultimately sympathetic to her characters. Alix is not a cartoonish villain who twirls her sleek mustache and swirls her martini. She is simply too privileged, too ignorant, and too self absorbed, even if she has good intentions sometimes and her own hurts, strengths, weaknesses, hopes, dreams, and trauma. Just like Kelley and Emira, she is not a trope or a stereotype, but a person who isn’t perfect. 

It helps that Emira is a fantastic character. She struggles with the experience of being a more disenfranchised black woman working for a wealthy white woman, but she also struggles with many common millennial feelings as well, such as feeling like a failure or disappointment, fear over losing friends, not knowing what you want to do with your life, feeling like the odd one out in your family, or feeling like the only poor adrift one in your friend group. She also loves the girl she babysits, Briar, and wonders if she loves kids or just Briar. 

Like someone said, cracking good read. I devoured this book quickly (the writing style facilitates a quick read) and was so wound up in the lives of these characters. I would recommend this book for anyone who loves those fast paced and high stakes drama between well written characters, like anything by Celeste Ng or Liane Moriarty.