Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid
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Such a Fun Age

Bestseller

Author: Kiley Reid

Narrator: Nicole Lewis

Unabridged: 9 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 12/31/2019


Synopsis

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," the complicated reality of being a grown up, and the consequences of doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

Author Bio

American author, Kiley Reid, is a brand new novelist who has had success with her first novel. It is entitled "Such a Fun Age", and was published in the U.S. in December of 2019, and in the U.K. in January of 2020.

Reid studied theater two years at the University of Arizona, before transferring to Marymount Manhattan College, which would seem to be quite a cultural shock from her California birthplace and Arizona. She eventually graduated from The Iowa Writer's Workshop.

Reid's first (and so far) only novel received numerous awards for her creative story which explores the many questions that can arise when a young black student is a nanny for an elite, white family. "Such a Fun Age", has been described as a "funny, fast-paced examination of privilege in America". Reid actually drew from her experiences in caring for the children of the wealthy in Manhattan while she worked on her Masters and wrote her first novel. Actually, the book and screen rights to the story were purchased before she graduated. She now lives in Philadelphia with her husband.

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