Reviews with content warning for Body shaming - Such a Fun Age

😲 <--- just this emoji a bunch of times. I was freaking blown away by this book. Idk why I'm so surprised, literally every single person that I've seen read this has loved it. But I just don't pick up lit fic that often, so I wasn't expecting much, I guess. But the realness! The relatability! The race and class dynamics! Also 3 year-old Briar is EVERYTHING! Please read this, my dudes.

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subjecta5's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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aflseniors09's review against another edition

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challenging emotional fast-paced

Strong character development? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

I did enjoy the book. I feel like it could make a lot of people think about race and consider things they normally wouldn't. It tackled things such as white saviors and fetishizing, but I feel like those exact things could've went over a decent portion of people's heads, but that's just my assumption.

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sarahna's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

2 stars.

This book wasn't what I expected at all. The premise and opening of the book was really interesting and I admire Amira for handling the situation so well. She ends up getting accused by a grocery store cop of kidnapping the white child she's babysitting. I fully understand that she doesn't want to make a big deal out of it and that getting the cop fired won't stop him from being racist to other POC in a different store.

Still, I expected to read more about her thoughts and how she processed this incident. Instead we get a dual pov of Amira, a black 25 year old babysitter who feels lost in life and Alix, a white mother of two who got rich due to a funeral accident and lives a double life making money with a blog and pretending she still lives in NYC while she actually moved to a more rural area.

SPOILERS:

My main issue was that I simply couldn't connect with either of the characters. Alix keeps creating problems herself, mentions the 6 pounds she gained and still hasn't lost since her pregnancy seemingly every other page because what worse could happen to a woman than be a bit chubbier? The way she kept mentioning the break up that happened 15 years ago without having had therapy was baffling to me. If that one line scarred her this much, why didn't she seek out help? It also rubbed me the wrong way how she kept neglecting Briar and favored her newborn daughter instead.

Amira was extremely relatable to me with feeling lost in her mid twenties and settling for less. Still, her character barely went through a development. She kept mentioning wanting to get a 'real' job with health insurance and benefits but needed her friends to practically force her into doing so. Kelley's character was completely unnecessary in my opinion. I'm still not sure whether he had a fetish for black women or wanted to be black himself. Both Kelley and Alix showed a different kind of white saviorism which was very apparent but again, neither of them really faced consequences.

The dialog was quite bad at times, especially the ones with Amira and her friends. The stark difference between her 'going out' side and professional side was jarring.

The ending was underwhelming too. I didn't like how despite her loving and being skilled at babysitting she couldn't settle for an official nanny job. No, instead it needs to be a 9 to 5 job at an office that she dislikes but hey, she has benefits.

Briar and Amira's relationship was the best part of the book and there were moments which made me think and see the negative behavior in Kelley and Alix. I honestly don't get the hype and would highly recommend reading THUG by Angie Thomas instead.

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natweck's review against another edition

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funny reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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kylajaynebooks's review against another edition

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funny informative mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Haha I loved this so much. When I say I literally was cry laughing during the thanksgiving scene and then AGAIN during the news interview; chefs kiss.

This book was so RAW and relatable. As a girl in her 20s watching her friends have babies, get engaged, graduate uni, get promoted, buy houses while I’m over here babysitting and struggling to even get into a program at school I appreciated this book so so much.

I thought the mental health rep was incredible, I thought she captured anxiety and fear and lonliness so perfectly.

Discussions on race are so incredibly important and necessary and as a white person I’m thankful for this story and the new perspective it’s given me.

However, I can’t with a right mind give this the full 5 stars. The weight and body image comments and discussions were not appreciated even though I understand it came from the characters insecurities. Also I just can’t get behind a frown as woman being jealous over her babysitters boyfriend; men ain’t shit, woman up you know? 😂

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