Soon after Emira begins working for the Chamberlains, Alix calls her late at night with an offer to pay her double if she can come get her daughter Briar and keep her busy at a nearby grocery store. “Huh,” she thinks, when Emira Tucker shows up on her doorstep: Emira is Black. Needing a new babysitter, Alix logs on to and chooses a profile with no picture. As her career begins to take off, Alix gives in to her husband Peter’s wish to move to Philadelphia, though she pretends on social media that she is still in New York City-the first indication of her intense concern with how she appears to others. She is the only female panelist, and a recording of the event goes viral. Participating in a discussion panel on reproductive care and empowering books for girls, Alix breastfeeds her two-year-old daughter throughout.

The business, “LetHer Speak,” promotes female empowerment through letter writing. Alix Chamberlain is a white, older millennial woman with two children living in New York and running a business that she started at the height of the blogger era. The novel opens in 2015, when Hillary Clinton is running for president. Reid has constructed a complex tale of twenty-first-century millennial life that scrutinizes racism in America today. Now, as protests against police violence and institutional racism take place all over the world, ignited by the murders of Black Americans including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, the relevance of this book cannot be overstated. Covering race, class, job insecurity, and gender politics, this book has resonated with a large cross section of readers. In January, Such a Fun Age was the featured title for Reese Witherspoon’s monthly book club. Kiley Reid’s debut novel made a splash before being released, with advance praise coming from sources as varied as Jojo Moyes and Lena Waithe, Entertainment Weekly and The New York Times.

Author kiley reid