4.5 out of 5 stars. A page-turner that addresses important social/cultural themes!

Alix Chamberlain is a successful blogger/speaker who moves out of NYC to Philadelphia with her two younger daughters for a job opportunity for her husband. Emira Tucker, their 25 year old babysitter, gets caught up in a racial profiling event at the local supermarket while watching the oldest daughter. Alix tries to set out to make things right and be-friend Emira. Their two separate lives start converging, making their relationship more confusing.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, the writing, and the characters. Kiley Reid is able to weave a unique story, telling it from multiple viewpoints, and make the reader stop & think!

Thank you to Kiley Reid, Penguin Group and Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

#SuchAfunAge #NetGalley

I knew nothing about this book before I started reading - except that it was a contemporary story about race and that this was the author's debut. I zoomed through this - loved the dialogue, loved (and hated) the characters and appreciated the ending of the book (some reviews say it was disappointing but I didn't feel that way at all).

"Charming, challenging, and so interesting you can hardly put it down." - Kirkus Reviews

Thank you to NetGalley and Putnam for the ARC of this book.

This many characters and timelines should be confusing and hard to follow, but what it was instead was just right. Each character perfectly formed, each backstory perfectly relevant- each relationship, conversation, group, scene- perfectly placed. The pace was great and the conversations about friendship, race, racism and ambition were so deftly done. Expecting a book to keep me engaged during the holidays was a tall task but this book lived up to it. Very happy to have read it.

This book was really well done. Tackles some heavy issues, but the book itself isn't dense or heavy. It also didn't feel preachy, or like it was trying to force a lesson. It was just a really interesting account of people's lives after an awful moment of profiling took place. I enjoyed the book and would definitely recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for an ARC of this book! Release date - December 31, 2019.

I think the main reason I feel like this book deserves 5 stars is because it absolutely hooked me from page one and I never wanted to put it down. I found myself thinking about the characters while I wasn’t reading and looking for every opportunity to pick it up again.

Not only that, it was SO well-written and clever. This book is really all about perspective. Being told from both the point of view of Alix and Emira made the book really come to life. Throw in Kelley and I was just amazed at the cleverness of it all. I really could see things from the point of view of all three of them. What I found amazing about this is that we are told the facts of what happened both in high school and present day. But during Alix’s chapters I felt like I could see why she felt like what she said and did was right, but then seeing the exact same things from Emira or Kelley’s perspective made me think maybe she was wrong. Throughout the book, all the characters felt like they were right in their own mind and based on how you look at things, I both agree and disagree. No one was really a villain or set out to do harm. It just shows how life is all about gray areas, misunderstandings and miscommunication and coincidences. It was so REAL.

The characters were great too. Briar is the absolute best. I totally want her to be my little girl. She was like a real three year old but also the best one. Her random sentences always made me laugh. Emira is also such an awesome character. I felt like she accurately represents a 25-year-old trying to figure out what to do with their life. I also felt like she was a genuinely kind-hearted person. Her and Briar’s interactions were always so sweet. Alix and Kelley are much more complex characters and there were times I liked them and times I didn’t. Honestly at the end of it I think I know how I feel about certain actions but can’t decide how I feel about them as whole, and I think that was the point. It was so well-done.

If I have one small critique it’s that I don’t get the title at all. Sometimes a book has a title that’s like, that’s not the title I would have chosen or that best describes the book but ok. But I don’t really see any connection at all between this title and the storyline of the book.

Definitely recommend this book to people who liked [book:The Help|4667024] and [book:Small Great Things|41021501]. The storylines have similar vibes. But I think this book is even more about the characters in such a real and clever way. I really enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed this. There was great character development and the backstory was woven in nicely with the present events. I do wish there had been more closure at the end with the relationship between Emira and Kelley. I was left wanting something more - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because I was enjoying their story so much. Definitely recommend!

I found this book very interesting because although Emira appeared to be the protagonist, in fact she was completely taken advantage of as Kelley and Alix played upon her naivete and sweetness. Everything was a facade and even though the letter never reached Kelley from Akix, they were set to destroy each other through mental and emotional manipulation. Prejudice also played a significant role. Very intriguing book.

I received a complimentary copy of SUCH A FUN AGE by Kiley Reid for an honest review from Penguin Group Putnam through Netgalley and I was also given an advance listener copy through Libro.Fm. I had seen a few great reviews for this book so I was very excited to have the opportunity to read this one!

SUCH A FUN AGE begins when Emira Tucker, a young babysitter in Philadelphia. She responds to a late night plea from her boss to come and pick up her 2-year-old charge Briar to get her out of the house while the family deals with an unanticipated incident. As something to do Emira takes Briar to the local high end supermarket and out of the blue she is confronted by a customer and a security guard. They can’t imagine that a young black woman like Emira could have any good reason to have a little white girl like Briar and they accuse Emira of kidnapping the little girl. Though Emira handles herself well and is able to quickly get Briar’s father to come and clear the whole thing up, it is an unsettling occurrence.

The rest of the book deals with the aftermath of this incident and the decisions Emira must make about her own future. A bystander caught the incident on film, but agrees to let Emira make the judgement call on whether to release the clip or not. Emira’s boss Alix expresses outrage on Emira’s behalf and showers her with attention and gifts. Emira is struggling to just make a living and a life and move ahead.

I though that SUCH A FUN AGE was very well done and I enjoyed reading it. The setup feels entirely real, sad to say. Emira winds up in a very uncomfortable position due to the prejudice she faces. She loves this little girl and Briar is clearly not unhappy in her present situation, but people see what they want to see. After the incident, Emira winds up caught in the middle as the people around her, all white, urge her to do what is right by releasing the video and/or suing the store.

In addition to Emira’s POV, we get to see into her boss Alix’s mind as well. Alix is used to crafting an image for herself, recreating everything about herself from the pronunciation of her name to identity she presents on social media. Though she’d be the first to claim she made herself, she has lived a life of privilege. After her husband stuck his racially insensitive foot in his mouth on live TV, Alix feels she must go above and beyond to assert to of course she isn’t racist, she’s a good person and best buds with Emira. She’s convinced in her own mind that she’s only doing what is best for herself and her family, but fails to recognize how over the top she is, completely over compensating.

I really enjoyed Emira as a character and really was rooting for her to find her own two feet and to stand up for herself when it seemed everyone around her claimed to know better what she needed to do. Emira showed a lot of growth through the course of this book and I would definitely classify this as a good coming of age narrative.

In all, I would definitely recommend SUCH A FUN AGE to you! This book will be published on 12/31/2019, so keep an eye out for it to kick off 2020!

Such a complicated story with complicated characters. It tackles some of the more prevalent issues of our age in a very authentic and soft-handed way rather than other books I’ve seen that really club you over the head with the “right” thing. It’s easy when the bad guy is an outright racist, but dealing with nuanced characters who wholeheartedly believe they are doing right by their black girlfriend/employee is a far more intriguing conflict, especially when from the outside looking in, you know they’re wrong.

The best thing about this book is how sincere and realistic it is. There’s no over the top HEA and the very last paragraph is an honest explanation of why Alix and Kelley’s behavior perpetuates. Reid handled the issues of class and race in a very forward thinking way. The only thing I felt I was missing was a bit more of Emira’s internal dialogue.

Such a Fun Age's blurb promised a page turner, and it delivered. The novel tells parallel coming of age stories: the evolution of Alix Chamberlain, an affluent influencer and mom of two with a clear direction, and that of her babysitter Emira, who's as directionless as they come. Both women grapple with identity and confidence, with the partners they have chosen for themselves, and with the path they find themselves on. It is, as the synopsis suggests, a story about privilege and race, but it's more than that. The first two thirds of the book flew for me. The last third seemed to lose its hold on the plot a bit, but not so much that I wanted to stop reading. What it lacks in this area it makes up for in characterization: I loved the complexity Reid lent to each character. As a former babysitter/nanny, the interactions between Emira and Briar tugged at my heart. Briar, who could have been a plot device, stole every scene she was in. The fact that this book is a debut makes it that much more impressive. I can't wait to get my hands on whatever Reid writes next. Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the review copy.

This seemingly easy, quirky covered debut novel by Kiley Reid carries heavy undertones.

The storyline starts as Emira is accused of kidnapping young Briar, whom she is actually babysitting on a whim for Alix Chamberlain.

As Mrs. Chamberlain spends time attempting to get to know Emira, so does Kelley Copeland. As if the story couldn’t get any more shockingly tangled. We learn that even Alix and Kelley have history.

I read this novel quickly within a sitting, the language was common dialogue, and I was drawn into the connection between Briar and Emira, as well as the connections to Philadelphia and Allentown. I did become increasingly frustrated with some of the events as they played out, and I felt the ending was rushed to tie up all of the loose ends with Elmira’s story and life.

I would recommend this novel to anyone that enjoys stories with strong 20something women as a lead role, as well as anyone that enjoys novels set in Philadelphia!

I really enjoyed Such a Fun Age! This book fell into a perfect sweet spot of well-written and a pleasure to read while also being thought-provoking and topical without being preachy. Will definitely be a buzzy book when it comes out in 2020.

Such a Fun Age is the perfect combination of breezy and thought-provoking. The perspective of the book shifts between Emira, a twenty-six year old African American baby-sitter and Alix, a privileged, white thirty-something influencer whose children Emira babysits. The book begins with Emira's encounter with the police while babysitting and as the story unfolds the reader becomes privy to each woman's strengths and weaknesses, providing an "honest" and realistic depiction of women and their relatedness to each other. Kiley Reid does a remarkable job of presenting the reader with complicated issues surrounding race, privilege, motherhood, and intention in an easily devourable package. Most certainly a must-read 2020 book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the advanced reader copy.

This was a great book that I had to keep reading because I wanted to know how everything turned out for the characters. This is a story where things are grey and it reminds you that people are complicated and people's interpretation of the same event may differ based on their own circumstances, histories, and personal outlook. It hits on complicated nuances of race and has really great character development, particularly for our main characters, Alis and Emira.

I read an electronic advanced copy via Netgally. Thanks G.P. Putnam's Sons.

I went into this book blind as to what the plot was and I'm so glad that I did because it made it that much more enjoyable. Reid presents an interesting exploration of race and class in a story that is highly readable. Emira, a young black woman, runs into trouble one night when the Chamberlains, the white family for whom she babysits, asks her to take their toddler to the grocery store to get her out of the house late one night. Confronted by a security guard, who accuses her of kidnapping the young girl, and filmed by a bystander, Emira's life is thrown into an uproar. The well-meaning (mostly white) characters try to help Emira by doing what they think is best for her, upsetting the balance of her situation.

While I found the coincidence of two of the characters knowing each other a LITTLE too good to be true, I overall greatly enjoyed this book. It is ultimately a critique of the "white savior" and gets into the problematic ways in which white people often overstep bounds in the name of "protecting" people of color. The central conflict between the two main white characters, and Emira's reactions to their different actions, was eye-opening in the way that it highlighted how certain actions can be interpreted in such different ways. The characters, especially Alix and Emira, were well-fleshed-out. Emira's relationship with Briar especially brought tears to my eyes in its realism and tenderness.

Reid is an author to watch and I think this book is going to make a big splash when it comes out.

Thank you GP Putnam's Sons and NetGalley for a copy of this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

There's a lot of buzz for this book and I get it, the plot sounds like something we see on the news very often. It gets you thinking about a lot of social issues - race, class, wealth, and friendship. So this is probably an unpopular opinion but I didn't love it. While it's really well written, it did not keep me engaged and I found myself putting it down several times. Maybe it's because I didn't like any of the characters. They all sounded pretty selfish to me and I was hoping there would be some strong female friendships in all of this but nope. In fact, when Alix's friends told her she needs to lose her baby weight, that really pissed me off. Ultimately, the book made me sad for Briar - the innocent child in all of this.

I was so excited to read this debut novel as I had seen so much buzz for it, so I was ecstatic when I received an ARC copy, this was such an important read focusing on race and privilege. It’s the story of 25 year old Emira who is trying to find her place in life while navigating work, romance and friendships at her own pace.
I won’t go into detail on the ins and outs of the story as I feel this is a book to be read and experienced by the reader directly.
What I loved about this book was the relationships that were formed and the important lessons that came from them. Each situation that Emira found herself in taught her future self.
This was a story about growth and acceptance and I can honestly say is was completely engrossed from the very first page. This was such a great read that I will definitely be recommending for a long time to come.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! The premise had me hooked and it read pretty quickly once you got into it. There was a bit of time movement from high school to present day, which was a bit confusing, but the book wrapped itself up beautifully and everything made sense in the end. I really did enjoy reading this book and I would recommend it easily to other readers! Pick it up when it releases in a few days!

This book was so easy to read and flowed so well you can somewhat look over some of the more deep aspects of it. Obviously this book is about race as the synopsis states, but the way this book is written so realistically you can see why people don't see themself as showing signs of racism that actually are.

So this story follows Emira, a young African American woman who baby sits for the second woman it follows Alix, a rich white woman. It all starts off based around this one incident taken place in a supermarket where Emira is wrongly accused of kidnapping Alix's daughter because Emira is black.

Showing both Emiras and Alix's sides of how both think of them feel it is and appropriate way to react is so interesting. Also showing the assumptions they have of each other and then also their realities is also really intriguing. The obsession Alix has with Emira is strange and even though it somewhat comes out as it being a thing of race I still find it odd.

There are so many things said by Alix and her friends that is wrong on so many levels but the fact that they aren't actually trying to be nasty or malicious is scarily so realistic and is what makes it hard for you to dislike Alix, because she ultimately is trying to be nice and do good, but it's just for the wrong reasons.

Anyway! I really enjoyed this book, it kept me interested the whole way through. I will say I found the ending to be quite abrupt and could read more about Emiras life as I found her character really fun and interesting.

*This ebook arc was given to me by netgalley in exchange for a honest review

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid is an excellent debut novel that contains so much more then what one first expects from a literary fiction piece. The prose and pace are relaxing,easy-going, and the reader first wants to breeze through what one projects to be a “fun” read, and one can do that, however I was able to step back and look at the novel’s complexities and multiple layers to find so much more.

The stories, actions, belief systems, and interplay of Alix (the privileged Caucasian gal) and her hired nanny Emira (25 y/o well-educated but still figuring out life African American) is fascinating.
Reading about both women’s motives, beliefs,
and though processes that are both subconscious and realized bring the reader to recognize many facets of society that still are tinted by the undercurrent of racism. The subjects of race, age, gender, ones’s place in society, and the foundations of relationships are all brought to attention within this book. Neither character is “right or wrong”. Both are imperfect, have their own motives and goals for this relationship, and as the reader, I found all of this interplay fascinating and intriguing. All of these points added to the author’s ability to create an easy read, made this debut enjoyable and flawless.

5/5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.