Kiley Reid has a unique way of writing about the every day with such character development that it turns into a page turner. Come and Get It includes a huge cast of characters attending and working at a college in Arkansas.

Whenever I see a Kiley Reid book pop up I get so excited because I always remember her as a great writer (she is), with fun (yes), lighthearted (no?) stories.
I might feel a little momentarily bait and switched but I'm never disappointed. The way her characters play in every shade of gray, the overlapping situations that bring the characters together and the wild end to each ride is always worth it.
Come and Get It features a college campus with a famous author as a visiting lecturer doing research for her next writing, a suite of college girls in a scholarship dorm known for being a bit off beat due to the diversity of those scholarships, and the Resident Advisors meant to keep the girls in line. Though doubts, loves, pranks, studies, drama, and subterfuge, this book has all the moral grays and it spills all the tea.

#netgalley
#comeandgetit

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My Selling Pitch:
Do you want to read a book full of social commentary that can’t decide if it wants to be a satire of college girl stereotypes or a slice-of-life character study? Are you willing to slog through the first 50% of a book to get a mediocre payoff from the ending?

Pre-reading:
On this episode of Samantha reads a buzzy author’s sophomore novel because she never got to the first one. I really like this cover. It reminds me of Babe.

Thick of it:
parsimoniously

Lit fic loves piss sin lol

Who hates pup cups? That’s so sweet. It’s literally just joy. Also, little free libraries are adorable.

OK, the class examination of privilege is very good, but also I love my balayage hair. Why can’t we just like things? Why does something have to automatically be hated on if white women like it?

Bunco

Peaches and cokes are my favorite gummies too.

There's quite a whiff of body shaming to this book.

You know, I’m from New England, and I love ponies, and I am not a skinny bitch.

What New Englander is wearing checkered vans with tube socks and also being an equestrian. That doesn’t go together.

What New England equestrian girly is paying attention to a 5’4 blond man.

Clear is not a color.

Chem majors are something else.

I don’t like this girl, Colette, at all, and she’s not a New Englander.

That’s not a ton of stuff? That’s like a very normal amount of stuff to try and make your dorm room nice.

This is so dumb. First come, first serve, and mind your fucking business about what your roommates bring.

This audiobook is doing a lot of heavy lifting for this book’s dialogue.

Why would you not want a single? That’s insane to me.

Please tell me Kennedy didn’t get raped. I’m really not looking to read another rape book.

I mean, I wouldn’t know that that sign is for the Talking Heads either. This book is just really rubbing me the wrong way with how it’s describing women. It just seems like it’s making fun of them for liking things, and it’s really not doing it for me.

Every time she describes other women it pisses me off because it’s really coming across as us versus them and I don’t like it.

fuchsine

Why would that mean your house is haunted? Also, the stereotyping is not doing it for me. I understand white people cliches are insufferable at best, but like come on.

4 shoes. What do you mean 4 shoes?

Agatha is wrong. It’s not her place to say how another woman spends her money. It’s her money. They have different financial priorities. Robin’s not wrong for living like that.

That’s literally not what she’s saying at all. There's a time and place for disturbing facts. First thing in the morning is not it.

~Girl dinner~

I hate Agatha. Do you not have knives for daily use?

I can’t hear monotone yet peppy.

You hate the getting there stories, but she’s literally a writer so the whole point is getting there, and this author’s story feels like a getting there story. I hate it here. DNF. I want to be done. (And then her own novel is later described in a way that feels like it’s a getting there story.)

But like Robin is right. She hates when other people enjoy things. Her opinion is the only right one and is fact.

No one who is struggling for money thinks of paying for HBO.

So AKC doesn't allow red labs or white marks.

That’s not a prank.

Zarf

Ha, the irony. I’m drinking a lavender latte right now.

What’s wrong with eating the cheese? What am I missing? You provided her with a snack. She ate the snack. Why is that wrong? And I don't understand if this is supposed to be a haha white people love cheese thing because the people critiquing this behavior are also white.

So now you’ve misattributed quotes but still think you’re saying something about privilege. How-

AGATHA SUCKS

I think what’s frustrating me so much about this book is that it’s not clear about who it’s trying to villainize so I can’t tell if I should be criticizing the statements as something the author is saying and believes or if it’s a problematic opinion she’s purposely given to a character to illustrate why they’re flawed. Like are we supposed to hate the professor for doing this unethical shit or are we supposed to hate Jenna for speaking carelessly? Because it reads like we’re supposed to hate Jenna, but I’m coming out of this hating Agatha.

What’s the law in Bama about recording because I think Massachusetts has like a two-party consent law or something. (Googled and someone actively involved in the conversation has to consent to being recorded.)

Hey girlypop, I sure hope you don’t mean this, but this is reading like shy, lonely girls pretend to get raped for attention. Or fantasize about it. And if you have anything close to that perspective, go fuck yourself so hard.

Hoydenish

Why do all her fantasies with women involve violence?

Is she really making fun of uptalk diction? Is this a joke? (I’ve read a couple nonfiction books that have definitely convinced me that criticizing language styles is rooted in misogyny and racism.)

This book is just coming across as internalized misogyny, but thinking it’s woke, but it’s really just hating other women.

That’s not being a white woman? What the fuck kind of quote and viewpoint is that? (And again is this the author’s actual belief or is this a deeply flawed character saying this? I don’t know. And I hate that.)

I mean, I like the parallelism of characters and showing that they all actually think the same way even though they’re all being awful to each other.

Do not give dogs beer

Does the dog die dot com. Yeef.

That’s so far-fetched. Why wouldn’t you just have her actually hit the dog?

This is reading like the author saw the cheerleader who got pregnant and killed her baby and was like how can I spin this for my book? And it feels very icky to me. It feels like well, how would the cheerleader go on with her life after everyone knew that she did such an awful thing, but that would be too dark for this book, so like what if I did the equivalent of a baby to white people- I know a dog. And, like a dog will garner more universal sympathy than teenage pregnancy which can create controversy because people don’t want teens to have sex.

If anything, I’m more jealous of your trauma is again a wild quote and yet another time I’m unsure whether the author is fetishizing trauma or she’s exaggerating to emphasize how crazy American media is.

Am I done with this yet.

This is her version of Rooney’s Beautiful World

I feel like Kennedy is going to kill herself as a result of this bullying and I just don’t want to read that.

This ending is saving this book.

Agatha SUCKS.

This ending is SAVING this book

Another 3.5 lol.

Post-reading:
I’ve been sitting on this review for a full day, and I’m still not quite sure how I feel about this book.

I think there’s so much to unpack and analyze and discuss within the novel. I’m just not sure it’s worth your time to do all that.

On the one hand, I’m so glad that there was payoff and a reason for the first 50% of this book. But that first 50% was fucking miserable to read. It’s eye-wateringly boring. In my opinion, the book struggles from the get-go because it can’t decide if it wants to be campy satire with over-the-top depictions of privileged college students or if it wants to be slice-of-life everyday horror. And I hesitate to even suggest that this book has horror elements because it doesn’t, but it would’ve been so much more successful for me if it did. Instead, it unfolds like a theatrical classic. There’s a reverse Gatsby-ness to it. I hate Gatsby. Feel free to write off my opinion for that. I think the story flounders through its beginning trying to give you character backstories for people that never truly earn your empathy, only to tangle their plot lines together so that the story can converge on one over-the-top incident that derails the characters’ expected outcomes, only for it to all work out okay enough in the end.

And while the story struggles to pick a lane, more damningly it fails to structure itself around a clear and identifiable hero arc. All these characters SUCK. It’s intentional. What muddies things is the social commentary. Is that an opinion the author is trying to voice or is that an opinion she’s given to a character to show that they’re flawed? While the concept of that is intriguing, the moral ambiguity produced by this story stems from prank wars and fun money which isn’t enough to carry the theme. It’s boring. It’s nit-picky. Without a pointed angle to the commentary, it comes off wishy-washy. It comes off very both sides make good points and that’s shit.

And staying so removed and neutral on the commentary made it come off offensive. It felt like a lot of the book was making fun of women for liking things, like that was the only way to show class divide. It made me not want to read it or take my time trying to parse out the book’s messaging. There’s fat shaming. There’s victim blaming. And what’s so frustrating is that I don’t know whether to blame the author for that or her characters. The attempts at satire just felt mean. It relied so heavily on stereotypes like white women love cheese and Target. Millie’s RA sidekicks feel like they’re borrowed from Mean Girls.

I think, I think-the book is attempting to add to the discussion that people are more than your first impressions of them. That everyone has layers, that everyone has depth, that everyone is going through their own private hells, and that those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. But that messaging is murky at best and subtext at most, and there’s a hell of a lot of books that do it more effectively and more enjoyably. Fredrik Backman’s Anxious People is my favorite example. But you’re shooting yourself in the foot if that’s your intended message when you then rely on melodrama that doesn’t have any of the ~drama~ to convey that message to your audience.

Which then, let’s talk about this book’s audience. I’m not sure who this book is supposed to be for. I imagine it’s most relatable to, and thus effective for, my age demographic-the the 20-something lit fic girlies. But I’m a dumb, dumb bitch. I shouldn’t have to struggle this much to comprehend an author’s meaning. The message should be accessible to its audience.

There’s one line in this book that I particularly hated. The idea that Agatha went to therapy to learn how to be a white woman was offensive. The book’s preoccupation with women’s trauma being used as cries for attention is so icky. And again, it’s like am I blaming the author for sending this message to her audience or is she making characters purposely distasteful? And I think it’s a little bit of both, and that’s why I don’t like this book.

But the book’s not all bad. I enjoyed the metaness of it; Characters hate,
meandering stories, meanwhile, they’re stuck in one. The professor writes off any essay with a name for an opening line, but many of the chapters start off that way. The epigraph frames the book excellently, but its meaning is only clear once you finish the book.

I think the people who blast this book for saying that nothing happens in it are fundamentally wrong. Plenty happens, it’s just boring. It is so goddamn slow. There’s no compelling hook to push you through the first half, and the back half relies on you suspending your disbelief and buying into these characters, absurd traumas. And what frustrates me is that they don’t have to be absurd. You can easily sub in Kennedy hitting the dog with her car when she pulls out of the driveway or the two girls fighting over a knife instead of a pizza cutter. I’m not sure what’s to be gained from writing the scenes as they are because it’s not humor. It’s not proper satire because the rest of the book doesn’t work as satire. I just don’t get it. And it’s frustrating because I’d like to.

I think this book would benefit from a book club discussion. I think you would get more out of it with more eyes on it. But I read alone and for enjoyment. I’m not a critic. I’m not an English major. I have no qualifications for voicing my opinions on all these books, but goddamn, I’m gonna do it anyway. I don’t think she’s a waste of your time. I just think you can have more enjoyable reading experiences elsewhere. And if you do pick this book up, I highly recommend the audiobook because I would not have gotten through this book without it. That narrator carried the dialogue.

Who should read this:
Social commentary fans
Melodrama fans

Do I want to reread this:
Maybe? If I had more time and like a discussion group because I think there’s a lot to pick apart here. I just don’t wanna do it lol

Similar books:
* Beautiful World Where Are You by Sally Rooney-shitty people being shitty to each other, character study
* Vladimir by Julia May Jonas-affairs, character study, academia
* Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress-shitty people being shitty to each other, character study, academia
* Big Swiss by Jen Beagin-affairs, character study, lesbians
* Anxious People by Fredrik Backman-ensemble cast, character study, people are more than your first impressions
* The Men Can’t Be Saved by Ben Purkert-purposely insufferable characters, character study, gay subtext
* Bunny by Mona Awad-psychological horror, campy satire, academia, lesbians

Readers can engage with this second novel by Kiley Reid (2019’s SUCH A FUN AGE), about dorm life at the University of Arkansas during the 2017 Fall semester, on a merely superficial level but if they dare, more adventurous readers can begin to suspect the deeper and more complicated fault lines that begin to appear in the relationships between Millie, an African American resident advisor, and Tyler, Peyton and Kennedy, suitemates with very different needs, desires and personalities. (Kennedy, a white transfer student from Iowa, a champion baton twirler and devoted Target shopper, who’s experienced the most bizarre fall from grace imaginable, is perhaps the novel’s loneliest, strangest, and most fascinating character.) Add to the mix a new creative writing professor named Agatha Paul, who, with Millie’s help, begins to interview the undergraduates in Belgrade about their relationships with money, sessions that lead to Agatha dispensing with consent and merely eavesdropping from Millie’s room. This a slow-burn social satire in which author Reid subtly ratchets up the tension between Agatha, Millie and especially mean girl Tyler, until a strange act of violence in the suite disrupts the lives of everyone involved. Reid is especially great with dialogue, capturing both the inanity of everyday talk and how it so effectively disguises the wicked negotiations of power and control in the most casual of conversations. A very funny novel (wait for the hilarious, nearly three page monologue about getting free food at Chik-fil-a), COME AND GET IT is also a terrifically insightful look at how money, class, race and power affect every relationship. Readers might not want to invite these characters to dinner but like Agatha Paul, they will certainly want to watch and observe the increasingly bad behavior.

I came very close to DNFing this book about 1/2 way in. It took me a couple of weeks to get through this one because I was constantly frustrated with the lack of plot.

The two main characters Millie and Agatha cross paths at the University of Arkansas where Millie is a RA (resident assistant) in the dorms and Agatha is a visiting professor. I became invested in both of these characters by page 100 and that may be the only thing that kept me going. In addition, the book examines socio-economic themes and character dynamics which are very well executed. As I stated earlier, the book has practically no plotline and I was constantly longing for something to happen.

Read this one as a character study and examination of socio-economic issues if the lack of plot is not a hinderance for you. 2.5 stars.

Thank you PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, G.P. Putnam's Sons for allowing me to read and review Come and Get It on NetGalley.

Published: 01/30/24

Stars: 1.5

Not for me. The blurbs and descriptions list best this and book club that and frankly I didn't find any part of the book interesting. When I was reading complete sentences I was as confused as when I started skimming. The story never evolved. There was whining, more whining, complaining, more complaining, and childish banterings. Young adults with middle grade conversation skills are not appealing.

I didn't connect with any part of the book.

There is foul language and use of the N word. Why?

it was a book about nothing going on but with multiple characters to keep up with? no thanks for me.

Thank you to Libro.fm for this audio galley. I also thank the publisher and Net Galley for the ebook. I love a story of college life and I was excited to read it. While it was a quick listen, the book was really kind of dull and the characters not very interesting. I was disappointed in the actions of the visiting professor, her older and should be wiser personality was dashed when she became involved with a student. Also in question was the student RA who didn't keep the best interest of her residents in mind. So much young adults behaving badly and unkind young women.
This book was just ok for me, and while I'll still be lookin for Kiley Reid's next book, I'm cautiously optimistic.

Sadly this just wasn’t for me. I loved the author’s first novel, Such a Fun Age, but this was the first book for me to DNF.

I very much appreciate the opportunity and I’m confident that this book will be for many other readers.

Thank you to Penguin and NetGalley.

I absolutely adored Kiley Reid's debut novel, so I was already excited going into this one and it did not disappoint. Once I got into it, I simply couldn't put it down. I love a character driven story, and when you have that take place on a college campus? Chef's kiss. I'll be a Kiley Reid fan forever.

This is the first book by Kiley Reid I've read, and overall I really like her style of writing; The plot was engaging for the most part, and included a cast of characters that was highly relatable as someone who graduated from college not tooooo long ago. I appreciated the alternating perspectives of the same events which allow the reader to get into the heads of the people involved, and how the tension builds throughout the story and keeps you guessing as to what the "thing" is that will essentially blow up multiple people's lives, While that tension is present, I did have some trouble figuring out why I should care about it...
Things moved a little slow for me in this story, and while I appreciated the commentary on race, racism, and it's role in higher education and academia across different students and staff/faculty members, some of the more jarring plot points felt like they had nothing to do with the core message of the story. While it was easy to read and digest, I think the novel falls flat in it's messaging, in favor in engaging the reader in more "dramatic" plot points.

"Come and Get It" centers on Millie, a Black senior RA at the University of Arkansas who is hyper responsible and dreams of buying her own home after graduation. Agatha Paul, a distinguished Black author turned visiting professor, decides to write a book about how money drives college students. She approaches Millie with an easy/unethical business opportunity that would allow Agatha to spy on the mostly-white and monied residents in the dorm for new book material. Millie obliges, and we watch as the drama unfolds.

The students living in the dorm, the professor and Millie (plus her co-workers) exist in a tit-for-tat state, with varying levels of pettiness, aggression, race and class warfare barely hidden under the surface of their relationships and conflicts.

I could read anything Kiley Reid writes — the novel flows so beautifully and her character development is spot-on. Each is lovingly drawn with sympathetic edges despite having severe flaws, which is masterful.

The characters' relationship with money is a microcosm of the capitalist mind-set of the United States as a whole, and it's both enlightening and damning, culminating in an event that has the capacity to destroy some lives but not others, and the fallout of this event feels like a slap in the face to some of the most sympathetic characters.

I wanted so much more justice in the end, but hey, that's life. It's rarely fair, nor resolved in a satisfying manner.

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid. Thanks to @netgalley
for providing me with a digital ARC of this one!
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I listened to the audiobook version of Kiley Reid's very buzzy first novel "Such a Fun Age" a few years ago, so I was keen to pick up a copy of her latest release. "Come and Get It" is much more character-driven and less plotty than "Such a Fun Age", but is in keeping with Reid's particular interest in class and racial dynamics, particularly within blurry personal and work relationships. Reid has a penchant for dialogue, and is a careful observer of subtle shifts in social and economic power between and amongst her chatty characters.
Pick this one up if you're interested in smart social commentary on American neoliberalism within the microcosm of a campus dorm, and can tolerate characters making a lot of down-right cringey decisions. Skip it if you think the lack of a strong plot will bother you.
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#comeandgetit #kileyreid #netgalley #recommendedread #bookreview #bookstagram #literature #bookpost #bookworm#booksofinstagram

First, thank you so much to Penguin and NetGalley for sending me the e-ARC of Come and Get It. I was thrilled to receive it. I loved Reid's debut—it was the first book I read in 2020 and remained a favorite throughout the year. Unfortunately, Come and Get It didn't land for me. I started it before the pub date in March and wrestled with whether to DNF or push myself to finish even though I wasn't enjoying it. Ultimately, I've landed on DNF. Here's the good: Reid's writing on a line level is sharp. The word "sharp" really encompasses so much of what I mean: it is precise; it can cut. However, the specific tensions explored here didn't keep me engaged. Some readers whom I respect loved this book, and because of that I may circle back at some point in the future. If I do, I'll be happy to update these thoughts. But for right now, I'm setting the book aside. I'll look forward to seeing what Reid writes next, as she continues to be an author whose voice and perspective interests me.

Really wanted to like this one, but unfortunately it did not work for me and I made me want to DNF. However, I can see the appeal for others.

It definitely falls more in the literary fiction realm, which can be hit or miss. I found the pacing to be very slow moving and not much to keep me captivated enough to draw me back to the book.

There is alot of commentary on racism and socioeconomic class that readers may find interesting. Also, for readers that love a university setting, this offers that and you get to meet many of the students on campus. Though, for me, I found many of the commentary on the students uninteresting even as character studies.

It could have been the authors intent to create a low stakes, slow moving read which is also fine, but it just did not work for me.
I would still encourage others to read it to form their own opinion as others might enjoy It much more than I did.

I enjoyed Reid's debut, Such a Fun Age, so I had really high hopes for Come and Get It. Unfortunately, I was bored with the story and this just did not work for me at all.

This is our Feb book club pick and I'm so thrilled we picked it because it is RIPE for group discussion. Reid's exploration of the ways in which money, the exchange of payment in particular, affect our relationships and inform our development, privilege, and choices is the central focus of this quasi-coming-of-age novel. The pace really hits a fever pitch around 2/3 through and I could not put it down. I also really liked the resolutions or lack thereof for some characters at the novel's conclusion.

At the University of Arkansas, Millie works as a resident assistant who develops a complicated relationship with a visiting professor. We follow the story of Millie, the professor, and three of her residents as they navigate issues of class, race, power dynamics, and desire.

I wanted to enjoy this story, but I could never quite get into it. It had a very slow beginning, and by the time the plot came together, it had lost some of my attention. By the end, I did find moments of interesting social commentary, and though I didn’t find any of the characters particularly likable, I was compelled enough to see how it ended.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Another stunning novel from Kiley Reid! If you liked Such a Fun Age, you’ll love Come and Get It. A character-rich exploration of power dynamics, ethics, race, class, and desire, this book was unsettling in the best ways. It was like a car wreck you can’t look away from.

The main characters include an RA in a college dorm, several of her residents, and a visiting professor. This book felt especially raw to me because of my own experiences as an RA in college. I know I’ll be thinking about this story for a while.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC.

Kiley Reid is a master of capturing dialogue, and in her second novel, her sights settle on campus life at the university of Arkansas. The book centers on Millie, a 24-year-old RA intent on scraping up enough cash to put a down payment on a house, and her group of charges, all women who landed in the transfer and scholarship dorm. The focus here is on relationships with money—who has it, who is being gifted large sums by their parents, who takes it for granted. One of Millie's residents, Kennedy, is a transfer who immediately puts off her suitemates with the sheer volume of stuff she has, mostly home decor accumulated from Target. That's all complicated and documented by Agatha, a 27-year-old visiting professor who becomes fascinated with Millie's residents, and eventually, with Millie herself. Come and Get It doesn't have quite the giddy, propulsive energy that Such a Fun Age has, but Reid's sharp character observation carries it through.