FRIENDS AND STRANGERS

by J. Courtney Sullivan

I was eagerly awaiting Courtney Sullivan’s new book Friends and Strangers for months before it came out.  She’s one of my “go-to” authors: I just know that I’m going to love her new books because I’ve loved all of her past books.  Only this time, she let me down.  Friends and Strangers is perfectly readable.  It just didn’t pull me in and keep me there like her past novels.  I suspect that may have to do with the crazy coincidence that I recently read Kiley Reid’s Such A Fun Age, which has a very similar storyline but overall delivers a much more nuanced and thought provoking read.

Both novels are about young women, either still in college or recently graduated, who haven’t figured out what they want to do with their lives and find themselves in nanny positions working for strong, successful women.  In both books, the relationship between the mother and the nanny develops into a friendship that borders on unhealthy.  The mothers employing the nannies envy the nannies’ youth and freedom.  The nannies romanticize the lives their employers lead – so settled and confident.  

I appreciate that Sullivan has her young nanny, Sam, be the catalyst for her employer Elisabeth’s ultimate enlightenment, instead of the other way around.  But Reid provides a more complex and realistic resolution to the central relationship in Such A Fun Age.  Undoubtedly the importance race plays in their relationship’s dynamic contributes to this. But generally, Reid’s characters are more fully drawn and complex.  In short, I liked both novels.  I just think Reid’s Such A Fun Age delivers more punch than Sullivan’s Friends and Strangers. (Liz)