On Kindreds Picks, we discuss some of our favorite recommendations that we didn’t have time to get to in our regular episode.
Katey’s Pick
Book: Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
This novel is about a young black woman living in Philadelphia who works two jobs, one of which is babysitting for a wealthy white family. She loves their three-year-old daughter and one night while out with friends, she gets an urgent call from her employer to come take their daughter to the grocery store while they deal with a crisis at home. When she goes to the upscale store, she’s suspected of kidnapping the three-year-old white girl by store security. The whole incident is filmed and sets off an unpredictable turn of events that the illuminate the classism and racism of transactional relationships. There’s a lot of cringe-worthy moments when the white woman in the story thinks she’s helping her babysitter out and committing all kinds of white savior sins.
Ashley’s Pick
Series: Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu
Hulu’s adaptation of the book Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng was recently released as a miniseries. The main characters, Elaina and Mia, are played by Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington, and the show is set in the late 1990s. The 90s nostalgia is so fun and real, from the music to the fashion. One thing Ashley is loving about the show is that they made the deliberate decision to make Mia’s character a Black woman, even though in the book her race isn’t mentioned. That decision just gives the relationship between the two women a very nuanced, interesting, and timely dimension.