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Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
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Such a Fun Age (edition 2019)

by Kiley Reid (Author)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingConversations / Mentions
3,1551714,232 (3.8)1 / 155
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," the complicated reality of being a grown up, and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.… (more)
Member:Plasmoid
Title:Such a Fun Age
Authors:Kiley Reid (Author)
Info:G.P. Putnam's Sons (2019), Edition: Reissue, 320 pages
Collections:Your library, To read
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Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

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» See also 155 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 170 (next | show all)
3.5 stars

Emira is a black 25-year old and she doesn’t have a “real” job. She is a babysitter (not a nanny) for a white couple three days/week and a typist the other two days. Briar is the toddler she looks after, mostly because Alix (Bri’s mom) doesn’t really like Bri and wants time away (though Emira is told Alix needs quiet to write her book (despite Alix taking her baby with her)).

When there is an emergency at Alix’s house one night while Emira is our with friends, Alix calls Emira in a panic asking if she can come take Bri while Alix and her husband call the police. Alix suggests Emira take Bri to the local grocery store… where another shopper decides Emira must have stolen the little white child and reports her to security. Another shopper gets the confrontation on video until it is sorted out. Emira wants nothing to do with the video and just wants to put it all behind her.

This was good. I didn’t really like any of the characters, though. (And although I don’t particularly like kids), I did love Emira’s relationship with Bri. Alix weirded me out there when she tried to befriend Emira. At the end, I liked the way the author delved into future years with how Emira was doing and what she continued on to do after the main part of the story was done. ( )
  LibraryCin | Feb 5, 2024 |
An interesting read about a black 25 yr old taking on a babysitting job for a white family. The mom is not aware that she is racist, nor is the babysitter until a situation becomes clear. The babysitter clearly comes out ahead.Kirkus: The relationship between a privileged white mom and her black babysitter is strained by race-related complications.Blogger/role model/inspirational speaker Alix Chamberlain is none too happy about moving from Manhattan to Philadelphia for her husband Peter's job as a TV newscaster. With no friends or in-laws around to help out with her almost-3-year-old, Briar, and infant, Catherine, she?ll never get anywhere on the book she?s writing unless she hires a sitter. She strikes gold when she finds Emira Tucker. Twenty-five-year-old Emira?s family and friends expect her to get going on a career, but outside the fact that she?s about to get kicked off her parents? health insurance, she?s happy with her part-time gigsand Briar is her "favorite little human." Then one day a double-header of racist events topples the apple cart¥Emira is stopped by a security guard who thinks she's kidnapped Briar, and when Peter's program shows a segment on the unusual ways teenagers ask their dates to the prom, he blurts out "Let's hope that last one asked her father first" about a black boy hoping to go with a white girl. Alix?s combination of awkwardness and obsession with regard to Emira spins out of control and then is complicated by the reappearance of someone from her past (coincidence alert), where lies yet another racist event. Reid?s debut sparkles with sharp observations and perfect details¥food, d?cor, clothes, social media, etc.¥and she?s a dialogue genius, effortlessly incorporating toddler-ese, witty boyfriend?speak, and African American Vernacular English. For about two-thirds of the book, her evenhandedness with her varied cast of characters is impressive, but there?s a point at which any possible empathy for Alix disappears. Not only is she shallow, entitled, unknowingly racist, and a bad mother, but she has not progressed one millimeter since high school, and even then she was worse than we thought. Maybe this was intentional, but it does make things¥ha ha¥very black and white.Charming, challenging, and so interesting you can hardly put it down.
  bentstoker | Jan 26, 2024 |
I’m always worried that I’ll be disappointed when I start a hyped up novel but this one was as entertaining as promised.

Viral video. Annoying Manhattan “influencer” types. Racial issues. Romance. Young people finding their sea legs in the adult world. A little bit of everything.

Very readable. I’d be happy to pick up her next novel. ( )
  hmonkeyreads | Jan 25, 2024 |
Such a fun, thrilling, and insightful read. ( )
  rockvillemama | Jan 24, 2024 |
Emira, a young black woman who babysits for a white family, is out with her young charge one evening at a high-end grocery store, when she is harassed by the security guard, who believes she may have kidnapped the toddler. The episode is caught on a cellphone video, and though Emira persuades the owner of the phone (a young white man) not to release the video, she does eventually begin a relationship with him. Meanwhile, Alix, the mother of the toddler, attempts to make it up to Emira by trying to establish a closer relationship with her, but is that really possible?

My feelings are all over the place about this novel and I can't quite decide how I feel about it. The opening scene does a great job of pulling the reader in, and though you think you know what's going to happen, you may be surprised. There is a lot going on in this story and there were aspects about it that I liked, but also things that I didn't care for. With a storyline that may make the reader somewhat uncomfortable, it does make you think, and would be a good read for a book club discussion. ( )
  indygo88 | Jan 23, 2024 |
Showing 1-5 of 170 (next | show all)
...as protests against police violence and institutional racism take place all over the world, ignited by the murders of Black Americans including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, the relevance of this book cannot be overstated. Reid has constructed a complex tale of twenty-first-century millennial life that scrutinizes racism in America today....Reid’s straightforward prose and sharp eye for social satire allow her to demonstrate clearly how race and privilege are inseparable from the way we structure our sense of self and our relationships with others. Such a Fun Age deserves a place on every reading list this summer.
 
It’s 2015 and, in a gentrified variation on “driving while black,” 20-something Emira is accosted in the freezer aisle of an upscale Philadelphia supermarket by a security guard accusing her of kidnapping her white charge....Emira is clearly the victim of racially motivated manipulation, but the two white people who profess to care for her shift uncomfortably between the poles of villain and hero. Both boss and boyfriend engage in distinct brands of white posturing, defining themselves in part by their relationships to this young woman — an adoring, vocationally lost black woman who must decide whether the benefits of those relationships are outweighed by the cost to her sense of self. Out of Reid’s often cloying vernacular, then, emerge some surprisingly resonant insights into the casual racism in everyday life, especially in the America of the liberal elite.
added by Lemeritus | editNew York Times, Lauren Christensen (pay site) (Dec 31, 2019)
 
The title of Kiley Reid's debut, Such a Fun Age, works on so many levels it makes me giddy — and, what's better, the title's plurality of meaning is echoed all over the place within the novel, where both plot and dialogue are layered with history, prejudice, expectations, and assumptions.... More broadly, the "fun age" might be our own, prior to the 2016 election — an age that was considered by some to be magically post-racist and post-sexist because it was impolite to be these things in public; an age of performative white feminism; an age of social media and virality and armchair activism and online virtue-signaling that ironically requires certain people — often, those already more vulnerable — to exist in specific politically correct ways while letting others — usually, those with power and privilege — off the hook....This is a book that will read, I suspect, quite differently to various audiences — funny to some, deeply uncomfortable and shamefully recognizable to others — but whatever the experience, I urge you to read Such a Fun Age. Let its empathic approach to even the ickiest characters stir you, allow yourself to share Emira's millennial anxieties about adulting, take joy in the innocence of Briar's still-unmarred personhood, and rejoice that Kiley Reid is only just getting started.
added by Lemeritus | editNPR, Ilana Masad (Dec 28, 2019)
 
The relationship between a privileged White mom and her Black babysitter is strained by race-related complications.... Charming, challenging, and so interesting you can hardly put it down.
added by Lemeritus | editKirkus Reviews (Oct 13, 2019)
 
In her debut, Reid crafts a nuanced portrait of a young black woman struggling to define herself apart from the white people in her life who are all too ready to speak and act on her behalf....Reid excels at depicting subtle variations and manifestations of self-doubt, and astutely illustrates how, when coupled with unrecognized white privilege, this emotional and professional insecurity can result in unintended—as well as willfully unseen—consequences. This is an impressive, memorable first outing.
added by Lemeritus | editPublisher's Weekly (Aug 14, 2019)
 

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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Reid, Kileyprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Lewis, NicoleNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
"We definitely wait for birthdays. Or even ice cream. Like [my daughter] has to earn it. Yesterday we promised her an ice cream, but then she behaved horribly. And I said, 'Then I'm sorry, ice cream is for girls who behave. And that's not you today. Maybe tomorrow.'"

---RACHEL SHERMAN,
Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence
Dedication
For Patricia Adeline Olivier
First words
That night, when Mrs. Chamberlain called, Emira could only piece together the words "... take Briar somewhere ..." and "... pay you double."
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix's desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other. With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," the complicated reality of being a grown up, and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

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