Here’s to my first review, unknowingly timely to the events that transpired right after I finished the book. Drawn to the colorful cover and the witty dialogue, little did I know this book would leave me with profound introspection.
Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age begins with protagonist Emira, a twenty-something black woman, accused of kidnapping the toddler-age white girl she is with by a supermarket security guard. In this last minute babysitting gig, fueled by an emergency at toddler Briar’s home, Emira left her friend’s birthday to take care of her “favorite little human.” A white bystander videotapes the whole fiasco, defending Emira until Briar’s father arrives. Thus begins Reid’s exploration of daily black-white interactions – between Emira and the onlooker/soon-to-be boyfriend, Kelley, as well as with Briar’s social media entrepreneur mother, Alix Chamberlain.
Exploring the “I can’t be racist, I have an black/brown/etc friend” cliché, Reid forces us to confront our own ‘wokeness.’ Kelley and Alix capitalize on their relationship with Emira as a way to display their ‘progressive’ beliefs. Kelley dates black women and hangs out with black guys, but also uses the n-word. Alix is a self-proclaimed liberal who worked on Hillary’s campaign, but parades her black babysitter to her friends and desperately tries to take Emira under her overbearing white feminist wing. Kelley and Alix not only have a history of their own, but each of their interactions is drenched with subtext of, as Alix calls it, “Which One of Us Is Actually More Racist?” Their liberal anxieties play tug-of-war for Emira’s attention, until it erupts into a climax straight out of your favorite reality show.
Readers are forced to consider their own actions regarding social justice. Are our actions merely performative? Or are they actually causing change?
These questions are especially important now, as we see a flood of hashtags and reposts for the Black Lives Matter movement. While awareness and sympathy are key, reposting without follow up action does very little. We’ve watched and taken part in the momentum that is pushing the movement forward.
However, in the coming days, will will inevitably see feeds returning to ‘normalcy,’ and I hope that many – with the first taste of social justice – will continue to advocate, educate, and fight for change.
With a rom-com feel, this book sheds light on real world issues, from racial profiling to performative justice. While not as serious as many other works detailing the black experience, it impacts introspection in our day-to-day interactions. Even with a predictable plot line, I still found myself gasping as the climax unfolded. It was the perfect amount of humor and reality packaged in 300-something pages.