Such a Fun Age

Alix Chamberlain is a woman who builds a career on a confidence-driven brand that teaches other women to get what they want. One night her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching Alix's toddler, Briar, in a high-end supermarket: a security guard sees a young Black woman out late with a white child and accuses her of kidnapping. A bystander films the incident, a crowd gathers, and Emira—humiliated and furious—faces immediate fallout. Alix resolves to make things right, but Emira, twenty-five, aimless, and about to lose her health insurance, is wary of Alix's desire to help. When the video unearths someone from Alix's past, both women are thrust onto a crash course that upends what they think they know about themselves and each other. The novel examines the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone "family," and the complicated reality of being a grown up.