BOOK REVIEW: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

 

Publication Date: December 31, 2019 Format: Paperback Genre:  Fiction

Publisher: GP Putnam's Sons      Length: 320 pages Buy:  Kindle | Paperback

Synopsis

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.

Review: 

White saviorism, black fetishism, white privilege flow throughout this book.  I really wanted to like it but I felt there was just something missing.  I put it down about halfway through and read a few other books then came back to it.  The ending did pick up and I understand what the author was going for and she hit some good points.  Alix, no matter her intentions was using Emira's harrowing experience for her own gain.  I wanted to like Kelley but he bordered on that woke line of being a bit over the top.  I think the biggest disappointment for me was the last line of the book.  I didn't think it was necessary and didn't fit.  

In this racially charged time I understand why this would be a good book club book because it does show what white privilege, white saviors and black fetishism look like but it did so in a way that made the players into caricatures and stereotypes.  But maybe some people need things put to them in simplistic ways in order to understand.  However I felt that this could have been done better.  And as a native Philly girl and knowing the author is from Philly I took offense to Alix's hesitation to tell the world she had moved from NYC to Philadelphia.  Overall I was just left feeling flat, not excited to share this book with someone else and also not disappointed that I had read it. 

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