This was the book I was most excited to read in 2020 and had been waiting for MONTHS for it to be released. There’s such a buzz around Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age right now and people seem to either love it or hate it. Have you read it? I did…and my review is a bit all over the place. There were parts of this book that I loved and parts of this book that I did not.
Synopsis from Goodreads:
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living showing other women how to do the same. A mother to two small girls, she started out as a blogger and has quickly built herself into a confidence-driven brand. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains’ toddler one night. Seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, a security guard at their local high-end supermarket 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 it 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,” the complicated reality of being a grown up, and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
My Thoughts:
3.5 Stars
(Disclaimer: I will never post spoilers in my reviews HOWEVER the comment section is completely fair game to discuss any and all specifics including spoilers)
Man, my thoughts on this one are a bit all over the place.
First and foremost, this book brings awareness to such an important topic of equality. It’s very candid in the way it discusses race. Books like this NEED to be written and NEED to be shared. I’m so glad I read it and I’m so glad that the buzz is focusing around a book which is such an important read for so many reasons.
There were a few things about this book that I didn’t love. For one, I had a hard time truly liking ANY of the characters (especially Alix who I found creepy, extremely immature, and overall just awful from the very beginning). I also found this book quite predictable in many ways in terms of story lines…and I’m the WORST when it comes to correctly predicting story lines, lol.
(Complete side note…The teacher in me (I was an elementary school teacher for 14 years) has to wonder if Briar falls somewhere on the autism spectrum? Did anyone else think this while reading???)
I liked this book and it held my interest from page one but…I just kept waiting for the big climax which unfortunately didn’t even happen until almost the end of the book! I would say that he majority of this book was interesting although not very exciting.
It was a SUPER easy read, I read it over a few days. Although it wasn’t very exciting, it absolutely held my interest from page 1. I would 100 percent read another Kiley Reid book again, I really loved her writing style! For such a heavy topic, this book was actually a light and easy read. I give her credit…this alone will make people want to read this important book.
Told you my feelings on this book are a bit scattered 😉
Bottom Line:
I would recommend this book but only for the awareness that it brings to such an important topic….not for the actual story lines or characters.
Xo,
Jenny
Did you read this book? What did you think? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
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Book Coffee Happy 
Thanks for the honest review.
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I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this book…
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If I ever get around to it. My friend felt the same way you did about this one.
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I was definitely having the same thoughts on Briar. I began wondering if it would ever be brought up later on in the book.
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Yes! I also kept waiting for it to be brought up…??? 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
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I have read this and my rating is the same. I liked it but didn’t love it. As an Australian, I probably didn’t get some of the things that rely on cultural experiences. For example, here it’s quite common to do odd jobs in your 20s and noone loses sleep over it. I was a babysitter, a cleaner, a pot scrubber, a waitress, a barista, a tour guide. It was fun! Also, how is it that everyone thinks Alix is so horrible but Kelley gets away with using black women as fashion accessories and that’s ok? That’s racism too in a really creepy way. Just personal opinion. Still enjoyed the book and it made me think about lots of things. The only character I loved was Briar and my heart broke for her!
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I thought the same thing about Briar. I kind of like that they never came out and said definitively that she was, but I definitely got the feeling she was somewhere on the spectrum too.
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Exactly!
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I found this review after googling “Such a fun age Briar autism” – that is, I wanted to see if other readers also thought that she was on the spectrum (one of my children is). As for comments in the book, I can only think of the fact that Alix prefers to concentrate on her second, perfect girl, a mirror image of herself. In their last conversation, Emira says something like “Stop looking at her like you’re just waiting for her to change, ’cause … it is what it is, you’re her mom”. So I guess that was her way of saying, accept that your daughter is the way that she is (on the spectrum).
And, like for many of the other readers, Briar was my favorite character too.
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YES! I’m so glad to hear I’m not the only one who thought that while reading…???
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I found this book vapid, poorly written, and not interesting. A better writer could have, perhaps made the subject into an interesting, engaging book: such as Americanah. This was just stupid. The conversations between the Black women were so trite and predictable. They could be called stereotypes. The upper class white women were also stereotypical. I just don’t get all the hype for this one. As a literature major, I’m lost to see this as a wonderful piece of work.
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