Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

 I don't know what to make of this book. It started off well. Emira is the black babysitter for a white family helmed by Alix and her husband Peter, who is on the local news in Philly. One night, Peter makes a politically incorrect comment on the news and someone throws an egg through their front window. Alix calls Emira, even though it's late on a weekend night, to come and get 3-year-old daughter Briar so she's not around when the police arrive. Emira, who needs the money, agrees even though she was out partying with her friends at the time. She takes young Briar to the local  ritzy grocery store to hang out for an hour. While there, a busybody/concerned fellow shopper notifies the security guard that she thinks it looks fishy for this black girl to have a little white girl with her so late at night, even though Briar is clearly very fond of Emira and looks perfectly content. A fellow shopper, a white guy named Kelly, starts filming the incident on his cell phone and the incident is finally resolved only when Emira manages to get Peter on the phone and asks him to come to the store to verify that she is indeed the babysitter, which he does. 

Kelly gives Emira the video and tells her she should sue the store and/or go to the press, but she just wants to forget this ever happened.  After that the story kind of went downhill for me. Emira is a college graduate who can't figure out what she wants to be when she grows up but realizes she needs some kind of job with benefits because she will be off her parents' health insurance soon. And she truly loves little Briar--and definitely pays more attention to her than her mother does (which reminded me The Help). Anyway, Kelly and Emira start dating. Alix realizes she knows Kelly from her own past and decides to sabotage Emira and Kelly's relationship ("for Emira's own good") and everything blows up in Alix's face in a big way, leaving no one particularly happy.

I wasn't sure what Alix's motivation really was. She genuinely liked Emira and thought Kelly (who seemed obsessed with dating black women) was bad news, based on her own experience with him. But she also seemed obsessed with Kelly herself.  Emira seemed like a good soul who was kind of floundering, though it seems like she eventually did find her way. And you just hope that little Briar turns out okay.

This would be an interesting book for a book group discussion.