Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Synopsis:

What happens when you do the right thing for the right reason?

Alix Chamberlin is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living
, with her confidence-driver brand, showing other women how to do the same.
So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlins' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high end supermarket. The store's security guar, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, 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 things right. 

But Emira herself is aimless, broke and wary of Alix's desire to help. At 25, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira goes public and unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course tha will upend everything they think know about themselves and each other. 

I picked up this book because it had my beloved "Reese's Book Club" sticker on it and that was good enough for me.

I had seen this a few times over Bookstagram, but quite honestly didn't truly know what it was about. Upon reading the synopsis, I was intrigued.

MY RATING : 

⭐⭐⭐ / 5

Right away we get some action. Emira gets a call from the woman she babysits for, Alix, to see if she could occupy her daughter for a little bit. Only problem, its almost 11pm at night and Emira is out partying with her friends. Even still, Emira isn't incapable and goes down there and take the kid to the grocery store. Her friend Zara joins her. 

When she takes Briar to the supermarket, she is not actually dressed like she is supposed to be at the grocery store. Especially her, a black woman with a little 3 year old white child. And people start to take notice. After all, this is a high end supermarket. To be honest, I don't even know what a high end supermarket is. 

When she tries to leave, a woman had already told the store's security and hen up questioning her rather harshly and don't let her leave the store. A bystander ends up recording everything until Emira has to drag Briar's dad down to calm things down.

This is literally all with the 1st 3 chapters and to be honestly that was the most excited that I felt reading the whole book. Yes, there were important parts that pertain to our real every day lives in this historic period in our lifetime, but I could  not relate to the characters. I believe that the message that this book was getting to was very important , but it just wasn't it for me. I just couldn't connect with it.

That being said, I'm not trying to bring any negative light, because like I said, it is a very important topic that needs to be discussed and addressed. I just like I said, couldn't get into it. That may not be the same for a lot of people because I have seen a lot of praise for this novel.

Keeping with the tradition with my previous posts and this being a book club after all, lets jump into a few discussion questions, shall we?

I got these discussion questions from The Audio Blog, which you can find HERE. Here we go.....

1. Such a Fun Age is told from the perspectives of Alix and Emira. How did these different narrators affect your reading/listening experience? 

😁 I actually liked reading Emira's perspective better than Alix's. It didn't really affect my experience while reading it, but Emira's story was just easier for me to read. 

2. Why didn’t Emira want to share the video from the grocery store? 

😁 Emira is young. She is still at a very vulnerable age. She had a lot going on. She was about to be kicked off of her parents insurance, which she thinks about constantly and is a whole other issue to begin with. She was constantly stressed about it and its not right. She thought that this video getting out would paint her as a bad person. After all, she was a grocery store at 11 o'clock at night, dressed in club attire with a white baby, defending herself to a security guard. She didn't want to be looked at as a bad person that it could in the affect her future in a negative way.

3. After discovering Emira and Alix are linked by someone unexpected, did it change your opinion of either character?

😁 That was a nice plot twist, wasn't it? I felt at this point, it was going to get exciting again. And it did get exciting for that small part. I feel like it could've gone so much better with this storyline and it didn't go in a way that was very good. But no, it did not make me change my opinion of either character. Alix and Emira are both in very different parts of their lives and having that change my opinion would be unrealistic. 

There are more questions on the website which you should definitely check out if you enjoyed the book. 

Until Next time...….☮

Next Book:

The Wives by Tarryn Fisher