Book Club: "Such a Fun Age" by Kiley Reid
“Such a Fun Age” by Kiley Reid
This isn’t the first time we have done a book club read — it’s mainly when there’s a book we all want to review, tbh — but we are doing it a little differently this time. Instead of hopping on Zoom (Zoom fatigue is real, y’all), we each came up with some questions for our co-bloggers to answer. Unlike our normal reviews, this will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t read this book, be aware of that!
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.
With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.
Rating (out of 5):
Moira: 4.5
Elizabeth: 4.5
The book is told through two vastly different viewpoints -- Alix and Emira -- did you enjoy this? whose voice did you find more compelling?
Moira: Generally, I don’t like multiple narrators, as it pulls me out of the plot, but I felt it was essential to the story here. It may come as no surprise that I related more/found Alix more compelling. Emira’s uncertainty about the direction of her life/career/etc. is one I empathize with, but I share Alix’s pathological Type A traits.
Elizabeth: I actually really enjoy books that have different voices, so long as it serves a real purpose for driving the narrative. In this case, I think it definitely did, as it made the story seem more urgent, and it also highlighted the massive differences between Alix and Emira – in their points of view of the same incidents, as well as their motivations for behavior. I found Emira’s voice more compelling because, personally, I understood Alix more (as a white progressive woman).
What did you think of the inciting incident at the beginning of the book?
Moira: This is what hooked me! I was so full of rage for Emira, particularly because her attempts to deescalate the situation in which she is clearly, patently, the victim, were so heartbreaking. On initial reading of this, I had trouble understanding why she didn’t make a huge deal out of the way she was treated, but in retrospect it’s obvious that is my white privilege speaking. The consequences for her in this situation could have been catastrophic.
Elizabeth: Honestly, my perspective on this has shifted the past few weeks. We had planned for this to be our January book club read, but it fell by the wayside, and so when I first read it, I genuinely could not believe how Emira was willing to take it and to not create a viral moment. I was outraged on her behalf, and I also felt how embarrassed and sad she must have been. Obviously, a lot has changed since January, not least my personal awareness of the micro- and macro-aggressions faced daily by Black Americans, as well as the high-profile murders of so many Black individuals. Now, I totally understand why she wanted this to fly under the radar and just go on with her life — it kept her safe, out of the news, and not a target. It definitely makes me more sympathetic to her as a character, but also, I wish I could have been there to shove that security guard down. F the police.
Let's talk about Alix -- what do you think about her character, her feelings over being a rich white mom, and her reasons to get close to Emira? Do you think it's related to any sort of guilt from her past?
Moira: Until the end of the book, I was very sympathetic to Alix. I share that bubbly, “like me, please!” quality, and her ambitiousness. I think her attempts to be close to Emira were genuine, if clouded by the power imbalance that comes from being employer/employee. I actually don’t think that Alix feels any guilt about what happened in high school, so I’m not sure that it’s related. (Side note: Alix’s friends are awful, and the weight at which they call her fat—I calculated—is borderline underweight)
Elizabeth: Alix, and the stereotype of white woman she represents, is so familiar to me, in both good and bad ways. I think that she had good intent, but she wasn’t sure how to execute on it, but I also think that she saw herself as a savior to this “poor girl from a bad neighborhood.” I also think that she was very self-centered; I don’t mean that as in she was selfish, but rather that she had to be at the absolute center of all the relationships in her life. She did it with the blog, she did it with Emira (and Kelley), she did it with her New York friends.
I’d like to think that her view of Emira was due to some guilt over what she did to Robbie in high school, but I don’t think it was. She seems to have absolved herself of guilt over that when she was 18 and never really looked back.
After discovering that Alix and Emira are linked by someone unexpected, was your opinion of either character changed?
Moira: This is where I started turning on Alix, and where her white savior complex was really illuminated. She can’t simultaneously be Emira’s employer/friend/protector/savior, and she is working her ass off to be all of the above.
Elizabeth: I was shocked when we found out Emira’s Kelley was Alix’s high school boyfriend – like, I think I almost gasped out loud when all of that happened. Obviously, we, the reader, are only privy to Emira and Alix’s thoughts, so to see that converge in Kelley was a little surprising.
That said, I don’t think it really changed my opinion of either character. I did think Kelley was shady when we combined what we knew about his “friend group” in high school and how he might fetishize Black culture, but I didn’t look differently at Emira for dating this dude. She’s younger and maybe a bit naïve, but that is evident in a lot of her interactions.
Whose progressive/liberal viewpoint did you find more dangerous -- Kelley or Alix?
Moira: This is a hard one, and as a white person I’m not sure I can weigh in accurately. I remained unconvinced that Kelley was feitishizing black women, but AGAIN, it’s not my call to make. I do think Alix was more dangerous.
Elizabeth: Definitely Alix’s, and tbh, it made me look at some of my personal behaviors in a different light. Her particular brand white paternalism is pretty familiar to me, and it’s a thought pattern I’m trying to change.
Do you think that the high school activities impacted Kelley or Alix more?
Moira: I don’t think that can be quantified. I think it galvanized both of them in very different ways.
Elizabeth: Alix, for sure. She crafted a myth of victimhood that carried her through the next twenty years, and it definitely impacted all of her behavior and interactions with people of all races.
Were you surprised by who actually leaked the video? Do you think that the aftermath was realistic?
Moira: I wasn’t surprised. The aftermath is where the book went the teensiest bit off the rails for me. Emira’s live tv comments didn’t seem in keeping with her personality. Alix also went from being sympathetic but misguided to being a villain, which simplifies the moral message of the book in a way that I wasn’t wild about.
Elizabeth: Honestly, yes, I totally was. I thought that Kelley would have done it – either earlier in his story arc, or later, in a fit of pique with Emira. Probably until close to the end of the book, he was the bigger villain in my head.
What do you think the title means?
Moira: I think it’s a play on both the comments people make about small children, and of the nonstop fun that being in your 20s is supposed to be, and the complicated truth about both of those times.
Elizabeth: Admittedly, I am not the deepest of thinkers, but I think it’s a reference to both the era we live in, as well as Alix’s sense of nostalgia for her youth. I really felt like she was stuck in the past, especially once Kelley reappeared, and that she was romanticizing her life pre-kids in a way. She felt stunted in that regard to me. I think part of why she tried to really buddy-up with Emira was because she felt like she had squandered her youth, which societally is associated with being the most “fun age.”
Were you satisfied with the ending?
Elizabeth: Yes and no – it really took me surprise how much of a monster Alix was, and it made me totally reassess how I felt through the book. I never really liked Alix (I thought she was cloying and problematic), but I did see some of my well-meaning behaviors reflected in her character. That said, this rocked me to my core:
Believing that Kelley was the starting point of her adversity would always be easier than believing she’d simply slipped through an unlucky crack.
We talk a lot about white centering and white victimhood, especially now in our post-George Floyd reckoning, and that Alix was able to wipe out that she ruined someone’s life – the life of a Black man, at that – just because she wanted to is terrifying. Obviously, looking back at this now, I can totally see Alix going viral for her own Amy Cooper moment in the park, rather than her mommy blog.
I did like that Emira was able to call out Alix for her behavior, and I loved that she found a path doing something that made her content. Kelley continued to be the monster I thought he was – even though he didn’t leak the video – with his condescending text and tendency to only date Black girls (I’m totally assuming it’s a fetish for him – don’t @ me). Emira recognizing that she and Alix were both right about Kelley seemed like a perfect last moment, only because so much of this book is the push and pull between their two worldviews, and seeing how, even despite the biggest gulfs between people, there is common ground.
Honestly, how do you feel about the whole Emira-Kelley dynamic? and Emira-Alix?
Elizabeth: I felt a little squicked out by all of it – Kelley felt creepy and like he was taking advantage of Emira’s youth and lack of financial security, and Alix was the worst stereotype of a “woke” white woman. Emira seemed caught in both situations, and I don’t want to remove any agency because she was young and somewhat stuck in them, but I felt like both of our white characters took advantage of her in different ways.
For whom in the book did you feel the most empathy?
Moira: Hands down, Emira, for being thrown into this situation. Although, at least early on, Alix tugged at my heartstrings quite a bit.
Elizabeth: Briar, who seemed like such a unique kid with the potential to have a different path from either of her parents — especially if she had continued to have Emira in her life, who seemed to love her for who she was. The last line of this book will haunt me for a while.
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