Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid Book review

 

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid Book review

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid Book this is a pretty new release. I think it came out around like December 31st, like right on New Year's Eve. 

And I remember like reading the synopsis for this book and being like, "oh, that sounds really interesting. It's too bad it's coming out on New Year's Eve because I feel like it's going to get ignored more than it should.

" But then it turns out that like everyone was reading this book at the beginning of the year and in January, or at least everyone in my like bookish circles was, and everyone was raving about it. So I was like, well I better push that one up on my list. So I did and I read it and I enjoyed it. 

So this is a contemporary fiction book and you are following these two characters, Emira and Alex, or Ah-lex from the way they give the pronunciation of her name in that book. 

Alex is a mom and she has recently moved from New York City to Philadelphia. She has two kids, Briar who is like around two, three years old and then Catherine who is like a newborn. 

She runs her own business called let her speak, which is basically like a letter-writing service. They like helps other people write letters and she's like built this big like brand around herself and she gives like talks at conferences and things like that. 

And her and her family are white and they are pretty well-off. Her husband is a newscaster. And one night her house gets egged because of something that her husband said on air. And so they called the police. 

Alex doesn't want Briar around while the police are there doing they're sort of like investigation and so she calls Emira in a panic to come take briar and to take her out of the house. It's like 11 p.m., midnight when this is all happening. 

And so Emira is at a birthday party for her friend and she's at a club so she's not like dress super appropriately. 

She had a couple of drinks. She told Alex all of this over the phone and Alex still agreed to let her come and take briar for a little bit. And so she comes and her and her friend go to a local like sort of artisanal grocery store sort of thing for a little bit because Briar likes doing that. While she's there a security guard stops her and asks if she kidnapped this child. 

Someone like basically saw them together. They were like dancing in the aisle and stuff like that and assumed that she had been kidnapped or the lady assumed that briar had been kidnapped. 

And she tries to explain that she's the babysitter and you know becomes this thing. She has to call Alex's husband, Mr. Chamberlain in order to come and verify that she's the babysitter. 

This guy recorded the whole thing but like nothing really major happens outside of like this really terrible, racist, uncomfortable experience. And then they move on with their lives. And so this book is written from two points of view. One of them is Emira and one of them is Alex. 

You are basically following them through that point although you do sort of like get flashes back in time a little bit as Alex sort of reminisces about hiring Emira and how much she loves Emira. If it wasn't clear, Emira is a black girl that has obviously something to do with all of this and she becomes really obsessed with Emira being her babysitter because she loves the job that she does. 

And she also becomes really obsessed with like becoming friends with her for reasons that I still don't understand. And then your following things from Emira's point of view who is like working part-time as this babysitter and also like trying to figure out what she's doing with her life. 

She's around 25 years old. She starts dating someone, which becomes a whole thing in this story. Yeah this book is basically just like following them as events occur. It's really hard to talk about the plot of the rest of this book without feeling like you're getting into spoiler territory. 

So I'll stop there. But this book was like so well done in my opinion. There's a lot that happens in this book. And the way that this book is written is like really compelling and really readable. 

I don't really like that word but this is a book that keeps you turning the pages. It's very addicting almost. Like this book feels like it would be a really great movie to watch because it's so dramatic at times. And the way that things unfold, it's almost like a reality TV at certain points. 

The writer does a really great job of like getting in the head of these two characters. And Alex specifically is this liked white woman and like this book is exploring that whole like white savior complex that happens a lot of times. 

And it's really interesting being in her head and having her justify her actions even though you as the reader and the outsider knows that like things that she's doing are wrong and sometimes feel like a little bit insane. 

But you can see her like justifying the things that she's doing and the actions that she's making and the choices that she's made over the course of her life. And you can kind of understand, not that it makes it okay, but you can understand her point of view of the world and things like that. 

But at the same time like the author's very clearly showing how you can think you're doing the right thing but not be doing the right thing at all. 

Emira is I think a really great character and someone that you care a lot about. She has so much complexity. I think actually all of the characters in this book that you see kind of have a lot of complexity. 

Although I will say like Alex has like these three friends and it almost feels like  and the city almost in the way that these characters are relating to each other. But I also don't know if that's just like an upper-class New York thing. 

But this really is just a really fun and interesting and thought-provoking book that I think would be great for book clubs. um This was Reese's book club pick for January, I believe. 

It really is a book that when you're reading it, you want to talk about it with other people. I know that I had that feeling while reading this book. There are, like I said, a handful of people who I know already read the book and I wanted to text them and be like, oh my gosh, I'm at this part of the book and I can't believe that this has happened and I can't wait to see what happens next. 

I posted on my Instagram stories that I was reading this the other night and I got to a certain point and I realized that it was time for me to go to bed but I didn't want to go to bed. 

The book is broken up into four parts and I think it's right around like part two where things really start to pick up steam and I just had to keep reading in order to know like what was gonna happen. It's not a very long book but I did also read this and only two days. So that just says so much about, I think, the way this book has written. 

I wouldn't say that this is a really like literary novel by any means. It is like slightly satirical but it's also very light in the way that it approaches this topic. And because I think it's dealing with a sort of, they even say it in the book, like a lighter form of racism where no one gets killed and no one gets like hurt and like the situation doesn't get violent or anything like that, it's much more approachable. 

But I think at the same time, it's poking at the sort of racism that a lot of people don't view as being racism because it's "well-meaning" so to speak. So yeah I think that this would be a really great book to pick up and to read and to sort of examine your own privilege. 

And I say that as someone who like who read this book and was looking at thoughts or opinions I might have had in my life and realize that I wasn't taking the other person's perspective into account into me thinking I knew what was right. So yeah, this is a great book. 

I'm definitely gonna buy my own copy of it because I feel like this is a book that a lot of my friends would really enjoy. Like this feels like a really good swiss army rec sort of book. If you're someone who enjoys contemporary fiction, i feel like this is a really good book to pick up. 

I think it's really interesting that the author chose to set this book in 2015. It's like she's purposefully placing these people in a different time period almost. Yeah I just, I just really, really enjoyed this book. Like I think I would give this book a 4 out of 5 stars. 

Like I said it does take a little bit of a lighter touch with all the topics that it, you know, decides to like discuss and stuff like that, and I do you think that the ending left a little bit to be desired. But overall, I would highly recommend picking up this book and reading it because I think that it's worth it. 

So yeah, those are my quick thoughts on such a fun age. Let me know down in the comments below if you've read this book and what your thoughts were on it, especially if you maybe didn't enjoy it as much. I would love to hear some like counter opinions because I feel like I've been seeing nothing but like glowing praise for this book.

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