Book Snails Book Group discussion

Winning by a couple votes, the book we'll be reading for December is Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid. Remember to use spoiler tags when appropriate. Happy Reading!

Just starting my Danish version on audio.

Hopefully I can get this one from the library.

I am finished...or so my audio membership app is telling me, I woke up and thought "how did it end?" LOL
So now, in the middle of the night, I can´t sleep and I can´t listen to the end, because I am unfamiliar with how it works - do I pay because I wan´t to listen to the book again? argh...
Tomorrow I will call them and have a chat about the membership and hopefully listen to the end, there´s one hour left.

I was surprised about this book, it became better and better the further I got along. I like the characters and the somewhat humorous way they are described and the toecrumbling conversations. So far so good.

Fortunately it was a misunderstanding from my side and I finished the book today and really liked it. It was a 4 star read for me, looking forward to hear your snail opinions.

Aya wrote: "Fortunately it was a misunderstanding from my side and I finished the book today and really liked it. It was a 4 star read for me, looking forward to hear your snail opinions."

I just got my copy. Though I have to finish Friends Without Benefits first

Haha wouldn’t that be wonderful, Aya, being able to read while sleeping! The book sounds nice, I’m not shure if I can squeeze it in for this month but it’s on my tbr. You’re quite a quick snail finishing this one btw!

Yes, Pien, I am on a roll with my newfound friendship with audio-reading🤩
It is good for my eyes but also I have to admit, I might miss out on a sentence or two, sometimes I have to rewind, but in total it is a better way for me to read books.

Loved this!

I finished this at 3am Saturday, so there's no doubt, for me anyway, that it was compelling reading. But it's another one of those that straddles line between good and pretty good. I struggled to rate it. Three felt too low but it also didn't feel like a four star read. I liked Emira, I liked the story, I like both Emira and Alix's friends. I liked certain instances where the author introduced the various ways that people can be unknowingly racist. But there were some things I didn't like and didn't feel true. I didn't quite understand Emira's rather intense connection to Briar. I get that Briar's uniqueness is charming but it seemed a little contrived. I also didn't get why the white guy just couldn't fancy black girls. Maybe he just finds dark skin more attractive than white. (view spoiler)[The fact that he only dates women of colour doesn't mean he fetishises them. As the mixed race daughter of a mom who predominantly dated men of colour, I know for a fact that it all boils down to attraction. But him just up an saying the n-word was not cool. That did say something about him but it's not necessarily that he fetishises black people. (hide spoiler)] Lastly, for all that was bad about Alix I do feel sorry for her. It's hard to know how honest Alix was being when she'd talk about her childhood but it's pretty clear from both Alix and Kelley's memories that her last year of high school was miserable. (view spoiler)[I don't think the fact that she called the cops on the kids who crashed her house was necessarily wrong. Should it have been her first move? No, give them fair warning to leave. But it's not her fault that Robbie lost his scholarship. Yes, they were just being dumb teenagers but she was just a teenager too and we can't expect her to appreciate consequences that the other teenagers weren't considering. Though just writing all that has made me think more about Kelley, hmmm🤔🤔 (hide spoiler)] But that is not an excuse for her clear self-centeredness. She's totally got some issues.
Anyway, I've given it four stars. Aside from being a good little story, it seems like Riley struck the right tone to make the reader think, rather than feeling lectured.

I looks like we agree on this one, Keli and I never ever like to be lectured.

I really liked this book. Although I don't have any first-hand experience in racism towards black people, I could draw parallels with my surrounding about unconscious racism. I think that is becoming more prevalent than the all-out racism of the previous century. I really loved the characterizations and the conversations felt so real, particularly between the two groups of friends.
(view spoiler)[ The moment when Emira was about to attend Shaunie's success party was aptly captured. The whole should-be-happy but can't-really-be-happy, and then feeling-guilty-about-it part was so relatable.
Also I agree with Keli about painting Kelley Copeland as fetishist. A person can be attracted towards a skin tone more than others, and from what we saw of his relation with Emira, it seemed genuine.
And in spite of all the obsessiveness over Emira, and the insecurities and self-centeredness of Alix, I still kind of sympathized with her. But her favoritism between the children was plain bad. (hide spoiler)]