I thoroughly enjoyed this author's debut novel, Such a Fun Age, and was looking forward to her sophomore novel. Sadly, this one missed the mark for me. Having worked on a college campus in the 90's I enjoyed the setting, and the plot potential. After reading over 50% of the book, it had been mainly character studies of the story's characters, and how each of them ended up where the story takes place. Plot development occurred around 75% of the way into the book, after which the story and its ending seemed abrupt and dissatisfying. The story is told from several perspectives and like Reid's first novel, brings attention to ethics, microaggressions, and white privilege. I like Reid's writing and will definitely read future books, but this was not one of my favorites.

Thanks to NetGalley, Putnam Books, and the author for an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you @netgalley and @penguinbooks @penguinrandomhouse for this advance copy.
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I know this doesn’t publish for awhile, but it felt like perfect timing with the start of school and football season. The story follows a professor, a resident assistant and students living in a dorm at the University of Arkansas in 2017. The publisher describes this as “a tension-filled story about money, indiscretion, and bad behavior.” There are a lot of characters, and this is a more character driven novel, but I found it compulsively readable. Reid creates fascinating and distinct young women, all from different backgrounds, who come together through dorm life. It read like a more literary, college version of Mean Girls. If you love an academic setting, do not miss this one! I enjoyed it even more than Reid’s Such a Fun Age (a Reese’s book club pick).

This is the story of a college professor and several college students. Honestly, that's it. It didn't work for me because I love character-driven works, but I needa bit of plot. If you love books where nothing much happens and it's all about the characters, this will work well for you. Reid is a fantastic writer.

I wanted to give this a better review (and I did on GoodReads) because I feel like there is some edits that need to be done before this is published. I found a few grammar or just mistakes overall throughout this book (periods in the middle of a sentence, words combined together like "beenliving" or extra words added into a sentence.)

I felt like the story was good but a lot of the times when there was dialogue, it just overall did not make sense, especially between Collette and Ryland. I even read it out lout and it completely did not make sense. It seems like there was multiple conversations going on and the responses from them overall just didn't fit into what was happening. I think rethinking some of that would be a good idea. I didn't feel like there was enough development when it came to explaining the "dorm room" which seems more like an apartment. There was a double and single but then the double had a door? this was just confusing to me. I also felt like the development of the girls in the dorm was lacking. I had to refresh myself on who was who every time they were introduced. Lastly, all the sudden at the end of the book Joanie is reintroduced as she is barely mentioned throughout the whole book, besides the beginning.

I did feel like there was an actual story here, which some other reviewers did not think so. But I felt like how each character was so intertwined and twisted into each other.

Overall it was a good story with some many moving parts and different points of view, I did enjoy this and finished this within about a day.

Man, Kiley Reid sure has a way to add TENSION to her novels. While I didn't enjoy this one as much as Such a Fun Age, it still had that foreboding quality that makes it unputdownable. I also loved the college setting, and how it makes the reader examine the judgements we pass on people and how everyone struggles with things under the surface that we may never know.

This book was only ok for me.

The story felt choppy to me. The stories and characters didn't flow like they could've.

Millie was the most likable character in the book, by far, but she didn't really seem to be her own person. I can't put my finger on why but the author could've fleshed her out a lot more to add to the story.

The author also could've put less of the eavesdropping in and wrote more from a different perspective instead. The eavesdropping part seemed really overdone.

The students in the suite were all a mess in their own ways, as most "kids" are not I didn't feel for any of them, not really, which is such a shame.

The title doesn't make any sense with the book either. I kept trying to connect it while I was reading but I came up empty handed.

So much more could've been done with this book. I don't think I'd recommend it.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

A very weird reading experience where I felt like I was just reading words? I know that’s what reading is, but I just felt nothing toward this. It read like a first draft with some intriguing ideas here and there but not much else.

This book was more literary than what I usually read. It's the kind of book where I hold my breath throughout because you can just sense that things are going to go wrong, often for characters you care about, while the ones who are jerks are likely to get through unscathed,

I'd describe it as keenly observed with many wonderful details. There's a specificity to the language that make the novel authentic and relatable. It made me glad I'm older and not experiencing dorm-life, that's for sure. It also made me think about interactions in my own life where I should have been kinder to someone.

It feels hard to summarize the book and I'm sure those smarter than me will do better at analyzing it. But for me, I think it was about how money and power -- every day power that an educated white woman has -- can shape how you see the world. And how the world sees you.

It's been a while since I read Ms. Reid's Such a Fun Age, but while I liked Come and Get It, I preferred her first book.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book early.
This book focuses on Agatha, a visiting professor at University of Arkansas and the various students she comes into contact with. Millie is a RA with a plan of wanting to finish school and immediately buy a house (she’s already putting money aside for a down payment). There are a lot of characters (students at the university) and it can be tough to keep characters straight. The last third of this book picks up.
I’d rate this between 3-3.5 stars.

I will definitely be recommending this book to friends and book groups! It is thoroughly realistic, so even as readers are enjoying the book, they will sometimes cringe and other times laugh as the author captures college dorm life, young adults struggling to figure out where they fit in and who they want to be, heightened by Southern dialect and some not-always-good behavior. These college students are appalled at people who are “all old and thirty-eight or whatever.”

While there are diverse characters of all ages, there’s also a variety of motivations for snarky comments, rude behavior and uncaring attitudes: there's greed, physical longing, loneliness, and also - sadly- that pathetic sense of privilege. Set mainly on the campus of University of Arkansas, the plot revolves around Millie, one of the older R.A.s in a dorm. I was enjoying Millie’s interactions so much that I was temporarily a little disappointed around page 63 when the book’s emphasis switched to writer and part-time college instructor Agatha. However, Agatha’s career path intersected with Millie’s; I was pulled back in to the novel and read non-stop to the end. This novel kept my attention as characters waded through some awkward but believable situations. Not quite a 5 ⭐️for me but very close so I rounded up. There are no perfect people in this book, and one’s sympathies will fluctuate as people say “oh bless your heart” and then show with their behavior that they couldn’t care less about that person they had just addressed. Y’all come on and read this!

I really enjoyed the campus setting for this novel, which was a less plot-driven than Reid's debut was, and was more focused on the cast of characters and the stories that made them the way they are. I did at times feel it was meandering in directions I didn't need to advance the story, and the ending gave me some pause, but I am still thinking about the characters days after finishing this novel, and questioning their choices and outcomes.

Come and Get It is a gripping story about things happening within a specific dorm at college. I found all of the characters compelling, but that the plot moved slowly. The phonetics of the accent were an amazing touch as well.

Thanks to the publisher for an early copy through NetGallery. I found Come and Get It compulsively readable. It rides a perfect line of cringe and sincere that hit just right with me. Kiley Reid’s writing is fast paced and thought provoking. Other reviewers critiqued a lack of plot, However, I could have spent even more time eavesdropping on the lives of these college students. I thought the characters had depth, flaws, and some were endlessly frustrating. Overall, I thought this was another great book from Reid and I look forward to her next one.

I’m pretty neutral on this book. There were parts I enjoyed, such as learning the backstories of each character and seeing some growth and development from Millie. There were parts that could’ve been handled better, such as the climax and Kennedy’s character. I feel that if Reid had focused on fewer characters, the little plot that was given would have landed much harder. Instead, I didn’t feel connected enough to the people who turned out to matter. Tyler was a main point throughout the story, but we didn’t ever really learn much about her and she didn’t seem to matter much in the end. I enjoyed the wittiness and I can see how this could’ve been a smash hit for me - but it fell a bit flat.

Thank you to the author and publisher for providing an advanced copy through Netgalley.

There is barely a whisper of plot in this book that otherwise focuses on the mostly internal ambitions of a cast of characters of varying likeability. HOWEVER, Reid’s writing is just that compelling. I’m convinced no one except Reid could evoke an undergraduate dorm in such a particular and unsettling way. She perfectly captures the anxiety of being young and the attendant fear of making mistakes, or worse, being the least liked person in the room.

I don’t think there was really anyone that I was rooting for. I’m not sure if I think anything about it? But I loved her last one so so much, so maybe it just wasn’t the right time to read it. It was just ok to me.

Very character driven but other than that the plot just isn’t there. Not too impressed with this one.

I’ve seen mixed reviews for this one, but I really enjoyed it. This is a very character-driven novel with well-developed distinctive and engaging voices. It’s slower paced with the plot really only truly moving forward in the final section but filled with social commentary, ethical dilemmas, race and power dynamics, exploitation, and, yes, laugh out loud humor.

I really enjoyed the shrewd look into dorm and campus life in a southern college town. And if you’re wondering about the cover, it’s a reference to the mascot for the University of Arkansas, the razorback, which is a hog.

I’m still thinking about these characters and what happened to them next. When a book lingers, for me that’s a sign of one well-written.

My thanks to @putnambooks and @netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book before its publication date.

Posted on GoodReads:

As a former RA myself, I loved this book. There were *several* main characters and many supporting cast; something that I enjoy in a book, although I understand that isn't everyone's cup of tea. I felt that they were all developed really well and showed such interesting and diverse personalities, and I loved that (to me) no one was a clear "hero" or "good guy" or "bad guy"... they were all just very human, making their human decisions and mistakes. Reid has such a nuanced style when dissecting race and sexuality through the characters and the microaggressions that they encounter in their lives.

If it were an option for me timing-wise, I could have easily finished this in a day or two. It was such a great read, and the writing style kept me interested and excited to continue over the course of a (too busy) week.
I haven't read the author's debut, Such A Fun Age, but now I am excited to pick it up!

Not posted on GoodReads:

I personally found Millie to be such a relatable character... trying to be there for her family, never receiving "allowance", having to work 2+ jobs including being an RA to cover room and board.
I felt it in my bones when I read Tyler say "You guys work here and you're supposed to care about our well-being..."
The feeling of having students who felt like they were truly going through something, receiving stipends and allowance from here and there while working so much for so little, and the expectation that we're supposed to be these students' sort of "fill-in caregivers". It was something that I didn't consider the depth of until years after I finished undergrad (way back in 2012), and this book totally took me right back to that time and the complex feelings around it.

Interesting book. I was so intrigued by the mystery around the characters and their inner dialogue. But this books kinda lost me throughout. There’s too many characters, that are three dimensional but don’t intersect enough. I had a hard time without a thrilling plot driving it and was just disappointed after being so interested at the beginning.