2021 British Book Award Debut Book of the Year (shortlist)
2020 Booker Prize (longlist)
A Best Book of the Year:
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Longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
A Reese's Book Club Pick
"The most provocative page-turner of the year." --Entertainment Weekly
"I urge you to read Such a Fun Age." --NPR
A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, 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 twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.
With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.
Genre: Literary Fiction
The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune • NPR • Vogue • Elle • Real Simple • InStyle • Good Housekeeping • Parade • Slate • Vox • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal • BookPage
Longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
A Reese's Book Club Pick
"The most provocative page-turner of the year." --Entertainment Weekly
"I urge you to read Such a Fun Age." --NPR
A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, 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 twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix's past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.
With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"In Such a Fun Age, Emira Tucker's relationships with her employer and new boyfriend culminate in an unexpected, combustible triangle so ingeniously plotted and observed that my heart pounded as though I was reading a thriller. This is not a world of easy answers but one in which intentions don't match actions and expectations don't match consequences, where it is possible to mean something partly good and do something mostly bad. The result is both unsparing and compassionate, impossible to read without wincing in recognition--and questioning yourself. Such a Fun Age is nothing short of brilliant, and Kiley Reid is a writer we need now." - Chloe Benjamin
"Gripping, substantive, complicated, compelling, and just plain true. . . . These characters laid claim to me, and their stories became important to me in the way art does that to its readers, viewers, listeners. . . . Such a fantastic, serious, and, I should say, fun read." - Paul Harding
"Kiley Reid's witty debut asks complicated questions around race, domestic work, and the transactional nature of each." - Nafissa Thompson-Spires
"Such a Fun Age is such a fabulous book-a crisp, wry, and insightful novel about class, race, and relationships. Kiley Reid is a gifted young writer with a generosity that makes her keen social eye that much funnier and sharper." - Jess Walter
"Gripping, substantive, complicated, compelling, and just plain true. . . . These characters laid claim to me, and their stories became important to me in the way art does that to its readers, viewers, listeners. . . . Such a fantastic, serious, and, I should say, fun read." - Paul Harding
"Kiley Reid's witty debut asks complicated questions around race, domestic work, and the transactional nature of each." - Nafissa Thompson-Spires
"Such a Fun Age is such a fabulous book-a crisp, wry, and insightful novel about class, race, and relationships. Kiley Reid is a gifted young writer with a generosity that makes her keen social eye that much funnier and sharper." - Jess Walter
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