A review by jonbrady
Such a Fun Age, by Kiley Reid

informative reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Such a Fun Age is a proper page-turner about modern millennial living, privilege, white saviours and black fetishists and the kinds of micro-aggressions that permeate our lives. 

Emira Tucker, down-on-her-luck Black twentysomething, takes a babysitting job for women-empowering blogger Alix Chamberlain - who sees herself, her upmarket home and her Cody family as the life-changing opportunity Emira has been waiting for. But when Emira is racially profiled in a supermarket and the incident is caught on camera, what flares up between the pair reveals much about both and how their race has dictated their lives and the struggles they face.

Kiley Reid’s debut has much to say about the modern power dynamics between Black people and white people, particularly the white people who are seen to make the grandest efforts and gestures to be “anti-racist”. Some of the bit parts aren’t as fleshed out as they could be, and the closing scenes perhaps amp up the conflict a little more than expected, but this is a great study that asks why, so often, Black people are characterised only by what they do for those with white skin. 

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