I’m sure Reese’s List serves an important purpose for some readers, but for this reader, I’m done. I tried Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age because it promised to be light and distracting and a good read. It was none of those things. I wouldn’t swear off a celebrity endorsement list for Just One Book, but reviewing the selections to date, the only one I’ve read and liked is Little Fires Everywhere and everything else has been Suspect.
Following an African-American babysitter (note not a nanny) as she works for a rich white family, the narrative explores the misplaced ‘good’ intentions of white people and white spaces and the ways race and inequality play out in caregiving. While this is an interesting premise, the book falls short in a few critical ways: Emira, our protagonist, has motivations and character development that are opaque and explored at a surface level, the novel does little to expand its themes beyond the particular example of This Family, and white readers are invited to distance themselves from the shenanigans of Alix, our white mom in a way that allows Alix to be an object of scorn, rather than one of meaningful self-reflection. We get to shake our heads in dismay at the plentiful ways Alix gaffs, makes appalling assumptions, oversteps and displays her ignorance – all while allowing ourselves to see Alix as distant. It could be I’m not doing enough work to self-reflect, I mean, I am a white mom who employs babysitters and nannies, and even while trying to see myself in Alix I just found her too ridiculous to be an empathetic point of connection.
So yeah. Not worth buying in a moment when libraries are closed, and when they open, not one I’d suggest you go and get. That said… if you are in the greater Guelph area, too bad, I’ve already lent it out.
Literary Vice 