“Emira had met several "Mrs. Chamberlains" before. They were all rich and overly nice and particularly lovely to the people that served them. Emira knew that Mrs. Chamberlain wanted a friendship, but she also knew that Mrs. Chamberlain would never display the same efforts of kindness with her friends as she did with Emira: "accidentally" ordering two salads and offering one to Emira, or sending her home with a bag filled with frozen dinners and soups.”
This week I started a bookstagram (an instagram account to help me track the books I have read). While trying to figure out how to take effortless-looking, artsy photos of books--spoiler alert, I have not figured this out and likely will not-- I learned about a crucial hashtag going around called #NotAReview and I am going to utilize that concept here for Such A Fun Age.
Let me explain! Not a review is when we promote and highlight the things we love about a book that we were not necessarily the intended audience for without assigning a star, or grade to the book. When we utilize not-a-review, we are giving books written by voices that are drowned out by predominantly white/straight/non-disabled authors, a chance. This means even if I don't "get" the book, I can still give feedback in a constructive way that doesn't rely on my "resonating" with a voice different from mine to decide if it is a "good-book" or not. If you follow me on goodreads you might be thinking "But Sarah, I saw you rated this book on there!" you are not wrong, I did! My exception to this #notareview concept is going to be goodreads star ratings. Star Ratings on Goodreads are crucial to a book's success, or lack of success. Star reviews (both positive and negative) actually help promote the book by bringing the average up when higher star reviews are given! Thanks for taking the time to read about the importance of Not-a-review! I hope that if you are reading this and you review books on any platform, you might consider utilizing this approach!
With all of the above in mind, I adored this book. I was incapable of putting Such A Fun Age down. It was like an extension of my arm. I carried it all around and binged as much as I could anytime I had a second. This is the story of Emira, a black babysitter for a rich white family that resides in Philadelphia. The book begins with a rent-a-cop assuming that Emira has kidnapped the white child she is babysitting and while the plot starts here, it isn't only about this incident.
There is a lot of heavy subject matter regarding all of the sneaky nuanced ways black people experience racism. Reid has brought an effortlessness to this story that made it deceptively light despite the unceasing undercurrent of unease woven into every chapter. Reid was so careful and smart in the way she crafted this story. Every sentence and story detail was intentional and vital.
This is some of the very best dialogue I have ever read. I hung on every interaction Emira had with her bestfriend, Zara. Honestly, I would read fifty books in a series of Emira and Zara talking back and forth with 0 driving plot. The dialogue was THAT good. Such A Fun Age is easily one of my favorite reads of 2020! I cannot wait to read more from this author!
I hear a lot of post-partum moms refer to a specific task that they were able to achieve before the baby that they have had to put on hold in favor of taking care of a new little one! I hear things like "This was my first run post-baby!" I have not had a first run post baby, however, this was my first successful library checkout from the 7-day non-renewable Rapid Reads shelf of my library! It seems silly, but this felt like a small step towards feeling like my pre-three-kid-self! Here's to accomplishments big and small that don't involve gross words like "getting my pre-baby body back!"
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