Such a Fun Age

The escalating tension between Emira and Alix is through Alix’s attempts to get Emira to share more about her life. Alix’s dysfunctional snooping behavior also hints at a potential conflict between the two later in the novel. Overall, Emira’s wariness at Alix finds a paralleled by Alix’s increasing curiosity and obsessive behavior, leading the plot towards an inevitable clash between these two women’s feelings towards one another. One of the interesting facets of the way that Reid portrays these two characters’ relationship is that the closer Alix thinks she is getting to Emira, the more Emira judges Alix as a person. Rather than enjoying the bottle of wine that Alix gifts her, Emira laughs about the wealthy woman she works for with Kelley later that night. This is an important dynamic because of what it reveals about Alix: Though she believes she is being more aware and thoughtful, she is actually acting out her own classist, racist beliefs towards a black woman, which is a pattern throughout her life.

One of the core thematic elements of Such A Fun Age is the ways that people’s identities, particularly in terms of race, gender, and class, impact the way they see the world and relate to others in intimate relationships. As the novel’s plot moves closer to a conflict, Emira lands at the center of each character’s struggle with their identity and the identities of those around them. Alix focuses heavily on her relationship with Emira, almost to the point of obsession, trying to decipher what Emira thinks and believing that if she can become closer to Emira, it will lessen Alix’s own complicity in racism and classism. Similarly, a key implication of Kelley’s behavior towards Emira is that he fetishizes her, a black woman, to some extent. He also reveals his own racist and classist beliefs without acknowledging them or realizing that he has done so. Meanwhile, Emira notices the ways that the white people around her interact with her and chooses whether or not to say something, often opting for silence over conflict. Her building resentment will lead to greater tension as the novel’s plot continues.