Such a Fun Age

This book starts with an incident in which Emira, a young black woman, is accused of having stolen the white toddler she babysits, Briar, in a grocery-store confrontation. The tone is set immediately to examine inherent racial biases, but less so these explicit moments of racism, and more how even “good white people” exploit black women in subtle, but nefarious ways.

The story follows Emira, a young black woman who, as with many twenty-somethings, is in a bit of a crisis regarding what to do with her life. She falls into a babysitting gig because it pays well, and ends up falling in love with the toddler she cares for, Briar, ostensibly appreciating not only the uncomplicated nature of children, but also a certain flavor of neglect that Briar feels as her upper-class mother is too worried about exteriors to be the best mother she can be. It's not hard to extrapolate out that neglect to upper-class white women generally (cough, myself included, which lent to some uncomfortable moments of introspection): the book asks us to question: how many of our “good intentions” are ultimately self-serving?

At the same time, Emira is developing a relationship with a white man, who fetishizes black bodies and black culture, exclusively dating black women: favorably, this can be interpreted as coincidence, or narrow attraction; less favorably, as black women as commodities (admittedly, a harsh interpretation, and one I would not go quite so far as to take – but gets you thinking).

All in all, I think the book plays on this idea of white people centering themselves in any American narrative as protagonists, including those, like Emira's, that are explicitly not theirs.

that second chapter put me in the hospital.. bc it was poorly written and annoying and ... idc ❤️

I liked this story and yet disliked it. I give it high marks for making the characters seem so real, yet on the other hand there was a lot of whining and feeling sorry for themselves. I wish one of the female characters could have been a strong woman. Instead all the characters (Male and female) could have used several years with a therapist.
But I still give it three stars because I was engaged.

Well this book is and was pretty nuce.
I was not fully invested in the story to be honest. But I also was not bored.
So a pretty low rating just due to me having like no INTREST in the storyline

Interesting to an extent a little boring but I did like the characters and how the author attacked transactional relationships. I am glad that Alex was written in a way that made the reader slowly question her motives, but overall it wasn't punchy, but I feel like that was the point. I don't know if it's a situation of it wasn't punchy because it wasn't supposed to be or just because it wasn't great......

2.8

Read this in one day on Gabber's recommendation! A fun, easy read! Perfect to ease me back into reading more! So very on the edge of cringe so many times. You could see where the story was going almost immediately. The only real suspense was which person would be the bigger problem in the end and how bad it would be. I wish we could have gotten more character development for the friends who didn't really get to have any interior life at all. Alex/Alix stressed me out a lot. I think she was presented in a pretty stereotypical way that rich, white, women bosses usually are (Devil Wears Prada, The Nanny Diaries, The Help), so that didn't feel particularly new or interesting. The voice of Emira was really great, but I wished for more for her in the end. Not even necessarily professionally, but just something. She was very clearly adrift. And then just seemed to kind of settle in an afterthought. I think the boyfriend would have been a lot more distasteful if we weren't only seeing him through the lens of two people who were both blinded by his good looks.

it is hard to articulate my exact thoughts and feelings about this book because its very difficult to talk about a book i have loved. i think the author did an outstanding job with depicting how white people think they are helping but are simply being selfish. when the author showed moments like the supermarket scene and how a white guy was encouraging that she post it online, or how the white employer was wondering how to approach her sitter. i couldn't figure out who was worst between alix and kelley, but as it turns out it is both of them.

my utmost favorite character was of course briar and i loved the parts she was in and her relationship with emira <3

3.75* really interesting discussions around race and privilege. However, i couldn't stand any of the characters.

A book I inhaled and enjoyed - even if it meant speed reading through the last few chapters and not being involved with any of the details. It taught me new perspectives on race and class, grey areas, and also made me a little sad because the characters did not have much growth or realization.

Edit: as I often rely on other reviews to help digest my own (which leads me to agree with others a lot lol), I'm updating my review with a bit more color. I too, did not enjoy the choppy narrative switch. The whole book felt like a bumpy but thrilling ride. Also, none of the characters were very likable to me, apart from Briar and Kelley - whom I felt deserved a little more love and vindication respectively.

Didn't enjoy the romance-ish part, or the way that all the woman characters seemed to compulsively drool over one other character. I also think it took too long to get going, but I made it through the audiobook without quitting, so it wasn't too bad in that respect. One other thing I disliked was the constant interruption of kid-dialogue.

The books is centered on differences between intention and reality(especially things no one can control, like happenstance), and includes a ton of remarks on subtle interactions and vocalizes a lot of thoughts that people would never actually admit to, usually. That's a large part of why it was entertaining enough to read(listen to) for me.

Kind of feels like a ‘book club book' if that makes sense. Lots of things to talk about with people that might spur discussion or sharing of similar stories, but beyond subtle racism and class, it also feels like the rest of it just isn't that deep. The rest of the main character's life feels like it didn't really matter at all, and I suspect the toddler may very well have been thrown in as a plot device that could add to the novel's word count.

I wouldn't feel right giving this book more or less than 4 stars. It was a really intriguing look into these peoples lives and perspectives. I can't say there's no growth in this story, but there's definitely people who may never learn or understand. It feels very true to life. I really liked the mc and her friends and I thought the ending was great. 

Really, really liked this book. It is so well written- specifically for the nuance that every single character in this book has. Every person is just fully realized and contains the complexities and contridictions that real humans have. I spent a significant amount of morning commute today contemplating this book- there's a lot to chew on here.

2.5

ok I know everybody's book club read this like 2 years ago but I just picked it up! Couldn't put it down! Clawed my face off with secondhand embarrassment at the white privilege antics!

I enjoyed the commentary in this book on race and treating people like people, and the ulterior motives that can come with that. I enjoyed the way the author wrote, and the way things concluded was realistic, if not satisfying. Minus one star because I didn't feel like any of the other characters were fleshed out at all besides Alix and Emira. The rest felt extremely 2-D.

This story was nothing like I thought it would be based on the synopsis. I thought the whole point of the book was to see how the main character handles an unsavory video being published online about her. You know, like really take a look at the effects of social media on someone's life and how quickly it can ruin someone. As well as how race adds another layer to the situation, and how someone can bounce back from it. (something similar to this does happen but not until the last 10% of the book). However, this was not that at all. It was still good for what it was and got into some other interesting topics, just not what it lead on to be.

Well, this was a light read, indeed. The pages flew by and I felt entertained but, sadly, on a very, very shallow level despite the topics of racism, privilege and “class” differences. After a rushed ending, it feels like the author simply bit off too much for her debut novel.Emira, our black protagonist, came across as devoid of any ambition, drifting mostly with the flow. She works for white influencer Alix Chamberlain and her husband, Peter. Yes, she loves her charge, young Briar - Alix' and Peter's first child - but even with Briar, Emira mostly remains strangely indifferent.Alix' and Emira's girlfriends are also rather nebulous figures who seem to merely exist as inconsequential side-kicks of the respective protagonist. They could have taken clearer roles in this novel but as it is, they remain “filling” material and mostly merely reflect their friend.The self-deceiving schemer Alix is written to be annoyingly over-the-top: While her actions still remain this side of plausibility, her motivations and justifications are way beyond - her “ruined” senior year is sixteen years in the past.In Alix' self-perception she would long have risen above Kelley Copeland: a career, a merry band of adoring and cheering girlfriends at her beck and call, a very white husband, two children (one of whom she likes...) - in Alix' bubble that would allow her to just write a Kelley Copeland gracefully off.All in all, “Such a Fun Age” was an amusing read but it's leaving a rather bland taste because from all the ambitious topics nothing is truly looked into and, thus, the real issues remain unresolved.Three out of five stars. Blog Facebook Twitter Instagram

3.5/5 stars. I'm unsure whether to round up or down.

There's things I absolutely loved about this book, like the discussions it created on race and privilege, it didn't go in the direction I expected. The first half of this book felt like it had no direction but it came together in the second half. IDK what to rate it.

Eu gostei bastante do final, mas eu não consegui gostar dos personagens. E apesar da escrita ser ótima o livro realmente não me interessou muito.

Good audio, best sped up. I was initially SO annoyed at how the narrator was pronouncing Alix until I understood it was part of the plot, lol. Really liked this one, a strong debut worth the hype.

3.5

First, let me say that this is great one to listen to as an audiobook. Special credit should be given to the voice narrator of the book, Nicole Lewis, for being able to voice a two-year old and the wide variety of characters. I also appreciated the way the book handled the issue of race, which is central to the book. It was both nuanced, showing contradictions and ambivalence, and spot on in showing the racism that exists in people who might not even realize it, who might even think that they're doing the right thing.

Though I enjoyed the book, it was also melodramatic at times. I may have laughed out loud and said “oh no,” but I wanted more out of it.

Great book. Very engaging plot, it pulls you in right away. It's funny even as it takes on the topic of racism and white saviors. It will make you think, and cringe.

I like the uncertainties and ambiguities Reid allows in her book, apparently not feeling the need to force the reader into absolute judgments. The event that serves as the fulcrum of the story, the night in the store, is not a clear-cut only-one-thing-you-can-say-about-it case of racism. The white characters are pretty sad, but not monsters. The black characters are presented much more favorably, as is to be expected, but are not without their flaws and ... well, Emira is rather sad herself. Such a Fun Age is an important picture of the kind of interaction that happens every day in this country. I hope I can learn from it.

After a rough start (nearly DNfd it) it eventually picked up around the half way mark. Its easily readable and does get more interesting towards the end but as other reviewers have said, the dialogue is just terrible and unnatural. It's just so cringe at times! I understand the point it was trying to make about performative activism and it did it successfully, but there were just some poor writing choices which brought the enjoyment down for me.