Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have to say I am really surprised to see the overall rating for this book under a 4.0. The somewhat mediocre ratings kept me from picking this book up sooner, but I am so glad I did.

The story is told from two different women's point of view. You have Alix, a 30-something white mother of two who just left the city she loved (NYC) where her career was thriving to move to Philadelphia for her husband's career. A move they had always agreed was going to happen. Alix is really struggling to find her place in Philly and she loses focus and motivation on her own work projects (a lifestyle blog and social media presence).

Then you have Emira, a 25 year old black woman who is still struggling to find her passion in life and is constantly comparing herself to her other 25 year old friends that she sees as more successful in their lives. Emira goes to work as a babysitter for Alix, primarily responsible for caring for Alix's outgoing and sometimes exhausting 2 year old, Briar.

The book summary for this book talks about this video going viral and the fallout from that, but the "viral" nature of the video didn't come in to play until almost the end of the book. This story is much more about how these two women navigate their individual worlds and how they create (and in Alix's case - cross) boundaries between employer and employee with the added implications of racial differences.

I will tell you that I never liked Alix. I never felt sorry for her or felt that she was "in the wrong." I honestly thought she was a pretty selfish and ignorant person. But that being said, I have never been one of those readers who gives a book a lower rating because I didn't like a main character. I think it is just as difficult to write a character people don't like as it is to write one they do. I don't think this author wanted to write a like-able character.

I think Alix made so much of her relationship about race and I found that Emira, for the most part, was more just thinking of the relationship as employer/employee. She didn't view babysitting as a lifelong career for her, so she was not hoping to turn this into a lifelong friendship and career (although she struggled with the idea of leaving Briar for another job).

Overall, I just thought the entire book was so well written, the story moved along so smoothly and there was an intersecting character that brought these two women together more than ever making you want to keep reading to see how it turned out. I think this deserves at least a solid 4.5 stars, but I am rounding up because the author did a great job of tackling a difficult narrative.

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