Kiley Reid

Points out (among other things) that upper-class white lady culture is so normal that the parts featuring Emira & her friends seems like it was written as a travel piece for white tourists. Just look at these wild black women in their natural environment. It also shows that those same women have to switch from one set of behaviors to another when they’re around white people. Especially when it comes to work environments - the woman who works at Sony probably doesn’t feel a thing when she show more does it, but Emira switches during conversations with Alix and Alix notices. I suppose whites from unacceptable backgrounds have to do the same.

The whole idea of becoming ‘woke’ is a good one, but it creates weird awkwardness when self-aware whites interact with blacks. We have to think about and evaluate everything we do before we do it lest an innocent comment or action be interpreted as racist and insulting. Ingrained and habitualized behavior can quickly become socially taboo and the constant, real-time assessment can come off like the white person wants to distance herself from the situation. Stand-offish and awkward, but coming from a good place that is totally hidden unless the white person explains painfully that she’s monitoring her every moment of time with this black person. That she’s modifying her behavior specially for this encounter. What’s more insulting? It’s a minefield and looking for the mines before you step on them is also an exploding mine.

It’s aggravating that both Kelly & Alix want to save Emira. Immediately infantilizing her as if she can’t decide and take action herself. Reminds me of how women in general were treated and portrayed for centuries. Unfortunately some still are. show less

I don't know why but I couldn't put this book down. It was compulsive. Kiley Reid's writing here was so good it felt effortless. She's asking questions about what it means to be a paid member of someone else's family, about how (if you're white) to be an ally (and how much of an obligation is imposed on BIPOC by people trying to be allies) and, fundamentally, how possible is it for even the most "woke" person to really get it?

As a title, Such a Fun Age feels very playful. Is Reid talking show more about the supposedly carefree years of our twenties, when we move from education into the workforce but we're not yet weighed down by the burdens of child-rearing, mortgages and aging parents? This is where the chief protagonist finds herself. Boomers, Lost Gens, Gen-Xers and millennials all seem to view this period in one's life as The Most Fun We Ever Had. But talk to many twenty-somethings in 2020 and you get a totally different perspective. The reality of exponentially-increasing inequality means that life is much harder for a 25-year-old today than it has been in decades. So is this what the title is meant to get us thinking about?

The other possibility is that the "fun age" refers to precocious toddler Briar, blonde, fluffy-headed, asker-of-constant-questions chatterbox adored by her black babysitter. Emira's "favorite little human." But possibly not the favorite child in her own family, especially not when baby Catherine is an exact replica of her mother and is "such an easy baby." Neither Briar, with her "raspy voice" and frequently awkward observations, nor Emira, who is struggling to find a path in life, are full of fun, but they do find a lot of fun with and in each other and that was the most fun part for this reader. show less

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid was a glorious read filled with surprises. A richly comedic voice that grabs your guts. The relationship between babysitter Emira , her employer and the child pulses with thought provoking commentary of class and race without bludgeoning the reader. A pure delight.

Emira is a twenty-six-year-old black woman who's still not quite sure what she wants to do with her life. To make ends meet in the meantime, she has a part-time babysitting gig looking after a toddler she really loves. But the kid's mother, Alix, is... really something... and after an incident in which Emira is hassled by a security guard in an upscale grocery store, the dynamics between the two of them change, at least in Alix's mind, then change even further when they discover an show more unexpected connection between them.

This is one of those surprising novels that I liked a lot even while I can't necessarily say that I always enjoyed it a lot. Truth is, I spent a fair amount of it in a sort of full-body cringe, because that's just the kind of reaction that Alix brings out. That's no doubt fully intended for her, though, and I'm really quite impressed by the way she simultaneously feels like a complete stereotype of a certain kind of affluent white woman -- you sort of expect to see her giving a talk about Leaning In while sipping a pumpkin spice latte in expensive yoga pants -- while simultaneously being a psychologically complex human being whose insecurities and cluelessnesses and states of denial are as realistic-feeling as they are infuriating.

And the interaction between this messed-up but supposedly well-meaning person and poor Emira, who's just trying to live her damned life, results in a novel that's about race and class and power dynamics, in a way that arises very naturally out of who these people are and what kind of lives they lead, rather than the author standing up on a soapbox lecturing us about it. It ultimately works very well, and I'm very glad to have read it, no matter how much it kept making me cringe. I would say I'm also happy never to have to spend time with Alix again, except that of course then I remember that there are plenty of other Alixes out there. show less