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Summary and Reviews of Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

Margo's Got Money Troubles

A Novel

by Rufi Thorpe
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  • Critics' Consensus:
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  • First Published:
  • Jun 11, 2024, 304 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman's attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.

As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she'd have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can't imagine how she'll ever make a living. She's still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn't brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone's advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.

Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she'll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx's advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she's turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo's problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo's Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who's struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It's a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.   

Chapter One

You are about to begin reading a new book, and to be honest, you are a little tense. The beginning of a novel is like a first date. You hope that from the first lines an urgent magic will take hold, and you will sink into the story like a hot bath, giving yourself over entirely. But this hope is tempered by the expectation that, in reality, you are about to have to learn a bunch of people's names and follow along politely like you are attending the baby shower of a woman you hardly know. And that's fine, goodness knows you've fallen in love with books that didn't grab you in the first paragraph. But that doesn't stop you from wishing they would, from wishing they would come right up to you in the dark of your mind and kiss you on the throat.

Margo's baby shower was hosted by the owner of the restaurant where she worked, Tessa, who thought it would be funny if the cake was shaped like a big dick, maybe because Margo wasn't married, was nineteen, and couldn't even drink, or ...

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What are some books you loved reading in 2024?
God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer by Joseph Earl Thomas Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder by Kerryne Mayne Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe (I seem to like titles featuring fun personal names) The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman Impossible Creatures by Katherine...
-Ann_Beman


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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Thorpe's twenty-year-old protagonist, Margo, has many troubles, of which money seems the most looming. Her life has taken a sudden, skidding U-turn, and she is experiencing a kind of existential whiplash. Margo is inexperienced and naïve, and when her favorite community college English professor first made it clear that he wanted to have a sexual relationship with her, she didn't even quite realize that she had a choice in the matter. After the relationship ends, she discovers she is pregnant. She decides to have the baby despite his and her mother Shyanne's strong resistance. She realizes that "she wasn't sure she wanted the baby so much as she wanted to prove to them both that they could not bend her conveniently to their will." This double consciousness is what makes Margo's character so compelling. She acts her age—young, impulsive at times—but also has a stubborn independence and a reflectiveness that allows her to learn from her experiences...continued

Full Review (762 words)

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(Reviewed by Danielle McClellan).

Media Reviews

Alta
A fun house mirror of a novel... deeply felt and wildly tender. Its characters are flawed and funny, and the novel itself reaches out toward its readers, hungry to be understood. The result is a book that is both a kiss on the throat and a punch in the teeth: vital, bracing, violent, alive.

Associated Press
A wholly original novel... . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end.

Book Enthusiast
I cannot stop telling people about this weird and wonderful gem of a book. It's so completely different than anything I've ever read. … This book was so singular and full of heart and I fell hard for both the titular Margo and her father, Jinx. If nothing else, read it for the last line alone, which FLOORED me. My prediction is this will be the Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow of 2024, so if that's your jam, get in on the ground floor.

Chicago Review of Books
Reading a Rufi Thorpe novel is like attending a masterclass on causality in fiction. Few authors write as deftly about navigating the systems that control our lives.

Harper's Bazaar
For anyone navigating the intertwined anxieties of adulthood and motherhood and trying to find their way through life, this book promises to offer sharp insights. It does so with a blend of boldness and humor... This audacious story explores themes of self-reliance and empowerment, but in a humorous rendition.

Literary Hub
In turns funny and moving, daring and satisfying, but above else, relentlessly charming—that rare book about storytelling that also tells a good story.

Minneapolis Star Tribune
It's hard not to love Margo, the character, who's smart, resourceful, goofy and kind, gamely conducting us through what is finally an entertaining plot full of quirky characters, surprising twists, and good old-fashioned suspense (What's to become of baby Bodhi?!). Give that woman, and her clever author, whatever constitutes a round of applause in this make-believe world.

Oprah Daily
A raucous and dazzlingly original novel that might just be the funniest book you read all summer.

Shelf Awareness (starred review)
Sometimes, a simple review feels insufficient. Where are the skywriters, the megaphones? In the case of Margo's Got Money Troubles, rest assured: this novel is going to make some serious noise. Aside from its excellent pacing and fascinating character work, this book is terrifically smart and plays with perspective through the indelible voice of Margo. A brilliant exploration of what is real and what is fake, how the world sees us and how we see ourselves, and what it means to try to control the narrative... . Whether it's Rufi Thorpe or Margo, readers will fall in love.

Vulture
Deeply funny, thoughtful, riveting.

Elle
Endearingly chaotic, this coming-of-age tale is certain to score a passionate fanbase.

Los Angeles Times
Beyond Thorpe's strong characters and tight plots, what sets her apart from her peers is the gnawing philosophical tension that rests at the center of her books... . Thorpe's novels defy easy categorization. Her characters' radiant energy and her books' knotted plots don't align with the moody atmosphere and tone poem quality of most contemporary literary fiction. Yet, these novels remain more intense and rigorous than most upmarket women's fiction. It's exhilarating to find an author who wants to tell you a good yarn, but also ask a lot of complicated questions.

Marie Claire
For those seeking chaos this summer, Margo's Got Money Troubles has more than enough for your fix, and you'll laugh out loud, too... . a smart, witty look at money, internet fame, and power.

New York Times Book Review
The warmth of Thorpe's tone, together with the thoroughness of her imagination and the artfulness of her pacing, means that skepticism is kept at bay. She sells us on both the characters and the plot ... [in] this enormously entertaining and lovable book.

Newsday
Crazy good.

The Washington Post
"The feel-good novel we need right now... . Margo's Got Money Troubles is fiery while at the same time darkly funny ... With Margo, Thorpe has given us a heroine to cheer for as she zigs and zags through a clothing-optional world, creating a brand-new life driven by age-old intelligence and motherly love.

The Times (UK)
A wholly original tale that manages to build a deliciously immersive fictional world full of intriguing characters while blatantly questioning notions of storytelling, and to offer serious challenges to ideas about young mothers and sex work while being wryly and often inappropriately funny.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Exuberant ... Terrific characters, rich worldbuilding, deep thoughts about fiction and morality, a love story, and a happy ending.

Publishers Weekly
Tender and offbeat... Thorpe infuses the portrayal of Margo and Jinx's relationship with sweetness, and she makes Margo a character to root for as the young mother learns how to support herself with help from her unconventional family. Once this gets its hooks into the reader, it doesn't let go.

Author Blurb Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow 
A hilarious novel about making the most of what you've got. Sharp and funny by turns, this is an exceptionally tender look at young motherhood and love that also involves professional wrestling, and yes, OnlyFans. I gobbled it up.

Author Blurb Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here
Margo's Got Money Troubles is an audacious, wildly funny, completely unpredictable novel by a writer so singular that it's hard to compare her to anyone else. Rufi Thorpe writes wildness so well, the messiness of the choices we make, the strange ways we bend and twist ourselves to accommodate those choices, and she does it with the rare qualities of tenderness and empathy. An absolutely brilliant book.

Author Blurb Kirstin Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Counterfeit
A thrilling, uproarious, and above all affirming exploration of one young woman's fight to make it in a world that's rooting against her. Margo is an unforgettable heroine, so real she walked right off the page and into my heart.

Reader Reviews

ABeman

Funny, sharp, empathetic exploration of creating your own narrative
Margo's dad has retired from his WWE pro-wrestling career and endured another stint in rehab before he moves in with Margo, his bastard daughter, who's recently gotten pregnant by her married English professor and has decided to have the baby, ...   Read More

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Beyond the Book



What's the Story with the Online Platform OnlyFans?

In Margo's Got Money Troubles, Margo begins creating content on OnlyFans, which eventually becomes quite lucrative work. But what is OnlyFans? Is it a pornography hub? Is it even legal?

OnlyFans was started in London, England. It is a subscription-based online platform with messaging features. It basically acts as a video-hosting site, like YouTube, but its content creators can upload their own videos and put them behind a paywall. Their subscribers can then pay them monthly fees to access their videos, send them financial "tips," or pay on a pay-per-view basis. This setup grants the people creating the videos full control over who watches their videos and how much they will be paid each time someone accesses their work. ...

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Read-Alikes

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