Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Book 36/30.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I deliberately chose this for book 36 of my 2023 reading challenge because I turned 36 on August 3rd and I just knoooowww 36 is going to be SUCH A FUN AGE!!! After all, I am getting married at 36 and almost exactly five months later I will see Taylor Swift perform live for the first time ever at The Eras Tour on 03.06 🎶and I don’t know how it gets better than this🎶

Such a Fun Age is a novel that examines what happens when you do the right thing for the wrong reason. It is centered on two women—Emira Tucker, a young black woman and Alix Chamberlain, a privileged white woman. Emira is a babysitter for the Chamberlains’ eldest daughter, Briar, and is currently juggling two jobs as she struggles to pay rent, keep her healthcare, and figure out what she wants to do with her life. Alix Chamberlain is a wealthy white blogger and minor social media celebrity who battles doubts and insecurities, all while on the surface maintaining a facade that she has everything she ever wanted.

This won the Goodreads Choice Award in 2020 for Best Debut Novel and I added it to my Want to Read shelf on Goodreads in January 2021. I finally got around to reading it almost three years later and while I enjoyed it, I thought I would like it much more than I did. Going in I was certain I would not rate it anything less than 4 stars, but it ended up being a 3 star read, mostly because I did not connect with either Emira or Alix, who are at the center of this novel. I also did not care for any of the other characters other than three-year-old Briar who was my favourite character and that is really saying something 🥴

My sentiments aside, this was an engaging contemporary novel with piercing social commentary that explores race, privilege, performative activism, ‘white saviour’ complexes, the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone “family” and the complicated reality of being a grown-up.

View all my reviews

** A guide to ratings **
1 star – did not like it
2 stars – it was okay
3 stars – liked it
4 stars – really liked it
5 stars – it was amazing