Why Kiley Reid's Such A Fun Age is Worthy of its Booker Prize Nomination

After Kiley Reid’s Such A Fun Age made the Booker Prize longlist this week, it only made sense to re-visit and review why it’s so worthy of the spot.

Emira is a typical twenty-something-year-old woman trying to make ends meet in a job she’s overqualified for. The joy in her life comes from her part-time role as a babysitter for the white, suburban family that are the Chamberlains.

When Emira is called out late one night to take their toddler, Briar, away from the house for an hour, she finds herself being confronted by a supermarket security guard who suspects that Emira, a young Black woman, has kidnapped a white child.

From here, we begin to witness a change in the way that Alix, the mother who feels responsible for sending her to the store, interacts with Emira. Alix, doused in privilege, attempts to console herself. She is so desperate to prove that she isn’t as ignorant as everyone else and that she is in fact a good mother, that she overcompensates and forces a friendly, chummy relationship with Emira.

The growing dynamic between Emira and Alix is so tense and often painful that it’s hard to tear your eyes away from the page. However, for me, Reid so cleverly dissects privilege by including a third character: Briar.

Briar is just like any other toddler – troublemaking and adventurous, yet innocent. While Alix obsesses over the differences between herself and Emira, Briar provides a third viewpoint of her babysitter, one which paints her, simply, as a human being.

It is so important that the Booker Prize have finally opened their eyes and started to consider stories that reflect the bigger picture of a world we’re currently living in. Such A Fun Age shines light on power control, fetishization and white privilege. Beyond this, it is witty, gripping and written with purpose.

This book stirred debates within me; it's a sad reality when we consider that Reid, who is such an amazing writer, is still having to explore systemic racism in 2020. This is exactly, however, the paradoxical nature of Such A Fun Age.

I want people to pick up this book so they can feel warm when they read about Emira and Briar sharing popcorn at the cinema. I want people to know that Reid is hitting the contemporary nail on the head when she so perfectly captures a group of girls dancing their arses off in a club. Yet within all this, we must continue to listen to authors who are still fighting the fight on racism, and we must take that fight on for ourselves too.

- Katie S x