Such a Fun Age

Such a Fun age was an entertaining and thought-provoking read.

Emira Tucker is black and is a soon to be 26-year-old babysitter who works in Philadelphia for news anchor Peter Chamberlain and an Instagram influencer Alix Chamberlain (a privileged white woman in her thirties). The book opens in 2015, with Alix asking Emira late at night to take their 3-year-old daughter, Briar to the supermarket for there had been an incident at their house (i.e. the Chamberlains’ house has been vandalized after Peter, a news anchor, made a racist comment on air), and she did not want Briar to see the cops. At the upscale supermarket, suspicions are stirred against Emira because of her race as compared to Briar’s. The security guard accosts her, and accuses her of kidnapping the child, and is only appeased when Peter Chamberlain himself comes and sorts out the matter. Meanwhile, a white guy, Kelly Copeland recorded the entire play out and told Emira that she should send it to the local police, and get the security guard fired. However, Emira was too embarrassed by the incident, and just wanted to forget about it. She told Kelley to delete the video, who insisted that he emailed it to her and then deleted it. Upon learning what happened with Emira at the supermarket, Alix tries to befriend her babysitter, giving her gifts now and then, increasing her salary, and soon develops an obsessive need to bond with Emira. Emira often finds herself hanging in awkward conversations with her boss, and meanwhile she starts dating Kelly Copeland, the guy from the supermarket. Little did she know that Kelly and Alix used to date each other in high school, and had parted in wrong terms. Both felt that the other was racist, and took advantage of black people. So, when Alix invited Emira to her Thanksgiving dinner and told her to bring along he boyfriend, things got really weird. After learning that Kelly was Emira’s boyfriend, Alix was determined to save her sitter from Kelly, and went to the extent of accessing Emira’s email account and leaking the video of Emira from the supermarket, just so that she would break up with Kelly.

The book basically highlights the experience of a young black woman who was trying to navigate adulthood while facing the ongoing, systemic racism in modern America. The relationship between Briar and Emily is heartwarming. Even though Emira knew that babysitting wasn’t a stable job for a soon to be 26-year-old, she loved Briar, and Briar felt as if she mattered whenever Emira was around. It was pretty evident from the start that Alix wasn’t fond of Briar, and cared the most about her younger daughter, Catherine. Emira and Briar on the other hand were a unit. Briar, a quirky and inquisitive 3-year-old thought the world of Emira, and Emira loved spending time with her. The book had a great plotline and focused on relevant themes such as race, social class, economic status, privilege, parenting and friendship. While the author started out with a promising plot line, she leaves her characters undeveloped, and there is a lack of emotional connection in the book. Nevertheless, the book focused on pressing issues, the most important one of them being racism. The author highlights racism from different perspectives, and avoids giving the reader easy solutions. She doesn’t tell the reader what to think, and instead she makes the reader think and examine their own feelings, and opinions. The novel proficiently interweaves race-related explorations with sharp contemplations on friendship, parenting, success, marriage, and more, thus highlighting that there’s so much more to us than skin. Overall, “Such a Fun Age” was an engaging read, and the pot was really gripping and compelling. It was a great coming-of-age novel, and I would highly recommend it!