When that fails to produce the kind of girl talk she shares with her own group of female friends back in New York, Alix resorts to sneaking peeks at the text messages and paused songs on the lock screen of Emira’s phone as it sits in the hallway charger. (The exquisitely perfect detail of that hashtag should give you a sense of how well-observed this novel is.)Īfter the grocery store incident, Alix develops a peculiar crush on her babysitter, yearning for her approval and trying to draw Emira into personal conversations. She’s parlayed a surprisingly fruitful hobby of writing letters to companies asking for free stuff “on thick, textured stationery and with dreamy cursive handwriting” into a college application consultation business and “a philosophy about women speaking up and taking communication back to basics” called #LetHerSpeak. Alix has the sort of vaporous “career” made possible by Instagram influencers and viral YouTube clips. That also sets her apart from Alix Chamberlain, who employs Emira to look after her two daughters several days a week. The one quality that distinguishes Emira from millions of other Americans her age (which may or may not be the “fun” age of the novel’s title) is her lack of any social media presence: no Instagram, no Twitter, not even Facebook.

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Such a fun age book cover