A hilarious and razor-sharp debut

Every week, The Thread checks in with booksellers around the country about their favorite books of the moment. This week, we spoke to Danny Caine from The Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kan.Bookseller Danny Caine describes Kiley Reid’s debut as “a hilarious and razor-sharp novel that kind of skewers a lot of issues of race and privilege and obsession.”The book follows a young black woman, Emira Tucker, who works for a wealthy white family. “The drama between this babysitter and the family is really hilarious, but also incredibly smart just about the way class and race works. It’s a book that’s a combination of funny and smart, and that’s my favorite thing, when something can be hilarious with a lot to say.”“Once specific thing I really, really loved about this book, and I think is rare in contemporary fiction, is that we know a lot about Emira’s financial situation. It’s almost like in novels it’s taboo to talk novels, to talk numbers. You refer vaguely to people’s financial struggles, but you never know exactly what’s going on.”“But we know Emira’s rent, we know how much she gets paid, when she applies for a job we know how much those jobs pay, and aside from being really honest and refreshing, that adds to what this book has to say about privilege. It was such a breath of fresh air to see such frank discussion of privilege and trying to make it as a young person in a big city.”