Book Review #83: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

I had been looking forward to reading this book for a really long time. Not only because of the great premise, but because of how well-received it was.

The story follows two women, one of which is Emira, who is accused one night of kidnapping the white child she is babysitting. The other is Alix, Emira's boss, who will do anything to make the situation right. But the incident sparks a chain of events that will challenge and change the lives of everyone involved.

Reading this book, something that I've learnt that I've never considered is the fact that, not being able to put a book down doesn't necessarily mean that you loved it.

Because that's how I felt about the book. I couldn't put it down for the 5 days that I was reading it, but once I got to the end, I realised that I didn't love it as much as I thought I did.

However, I thought the first chapter was incredible. My heart was pounding, I felt like I was in that supermarket with Emira, and I just couldn't put it down.

And I thought that the first few chapters were a great introduction to the characters. I completely fell in love with almost every one of them. They were well-thought out, they were three-dimensional, and I really loved them.

But then, for some reason, everything changed. And for me, this change came because the premise of the story changed. 

From reading the description, I had assumed that the story would be about the incident, the effect that it had on Emira, and the way that it changed Alix, and how ultimately it taught lessons about race, society and privilege.

But this wasn't what it was. Yes the incident is important to the story, but it's not what made up the entirety of the story, and therefore it's not what the story was 'about'. Rather, the story was about a young woman (Emira) who is struggling to find her place in the world, a mother (Alix) who does whatever she can to cement her place in a world that she's created, and a man (Kelley) who connects them in a way that I won't spoil.

I actually felt a bit let-down by the story, particularly by the character of Alix. Not only are we introduced to her as someone that we can root for, but the description of the book made it seem like she was someone we could root for. And without giving anything away, I just didn't get her. I didn't understand why she was our co-protagonist, I didn't understand why half of the story was in her point of view, and I didn't understand a lot of her motivations throughout the story.

However, what I will say about Alix, is that she is used as a good example of both performativism and white feminism. She is a character that appears 'woke' to those around her, but in actual fact she is almost as bad as the people she criticises. 

I liked the character of Emira. Some of the things that she did, I disagreed with, but overall I thought she was a great protagonist. I have seen criticism of the character in the fact that she is too old to have a lack of ambition, or to not know what she wants to do. Well, this was the thing that I loved. I'm only a few years younger than Emira, and I related to so much about her, including not knowing what she wants to do with her future.

And with the character of Kelley, my overriding emotion was confusion. I loved him, and then I felt like I shouldn't, and then I loved him again, and was left with no real conclusion. He's a character that I really enjoyed reading about.

Though speaking of the conclusion, I felt like there was no real conclusion to this story. Nothing was really learned, these characters didn't seem to grow, and I don't really know what the events of the story taught them. It felt like their lives never really changed, and that was disappointing. 

What was good?

This is one of those 'just one more page' books. I could not put it down. And when I had to put it down, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

What was bad?

I've already mentioned this, but I think it was a shame that 'the incident' wasn't a bigger part of the overall story. Particularly, I wanted to see how Emira was affected. Because while I liked her, I felt like all of her major plot-points were based on what everyone around her was doing.

Overall

I liked the book, but it wasn't what I thought it would be at all, and I kind of wish that it was. But it's still important, and I would definitely recommend it.

3.5/5