I truly enjoyed how hilarious and touching this book was!

Margo and her relationships were truly relatable and realistic in today's world. I enjoyed the OnlyFans topic as that is something so relevant for females in today's society.

The humor used to lessen the seriousness of some topics and turmoil made me laugh out loud and I found myself seeking out time to come back to this book over and over again.

A heartbreakingly raw story of a college student who has an affair with her married professor only to end up pregnant and decide to keep the baby even though she doesn't have a lot of money to live on and gets no support from the father.

This was such an eye-opening look at the lengths mothers will go to in order to keep and support their children in the midst of poverty, toxic parental relationships, and custody battles. I loved the insights into online sex work and thought Margo was such an easy to character to empathize and root for.

Great on audio and highly recommended. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy and Librofm for a complimentary ALC! This is definitely going to be a favorite for me this year!!

I found that this gave a unique perspective on working on a platform like OnlyFans and how it would affect all of the aspects of your life. There is a lot of talk about private parts (obviously). Margo is an intriguing FMC with a lot of layers to her considering her younger age. She's wise, although she doesn't realize this, and self-deprecating. The other characters in the book added another nice layer to the novel. Interesting read.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for advanced copy, and I give my review freely

Margo never had a conventional life, the illegitimate daughter of a Hooters waitress and a professional wrestler named Jinx (with whom she is estranged), Margo finds herself 19 and pregnant with her junior college professor’s baby. Once her son is born, Margo realizes that she needs money, she has no daycare so she can’t hold a job or go to school and the baby’s father wants nothing to do with her or her son. Then two things happen, Jinx shows up at her door right out of rehab and moves in with Margo and her roommate (turns out he’s great with babies) and she learns about OnlyFans. Jinx uses his world of wrestling knowledge to help her create an online persona and gain her a following. Now she’s actually making money and Margo has a source of income and a family, even though both are a bit unconventional.

It took me a bit to get into this book but once I did I couldn’t put it down. I’m not sure I needed such an in depth knowledge of OnlyFans but I really thought this book was creative in its premise and while not necessarily laugh out loud funny it was certainly humorous. While the characters had outrageous characteristics @rufithorpe gave them dimension, and so none of them were caricatures and by the end of the novel because of the story she had woven, you had empathy for them. I really enjoyed this one and it’s definitely one I’ll be recommending to people this summer

4.25 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC to review

I went into this one a bit blind. When I requested the ARC months ago, I know I read the blurb, but since then I had forgot and I chose to just dive in without knowing anything.

I’m so happy I did!!! This was not at all what I was expecting. I laughed, teared up, and got angry a fee too many times! The MC Margo was such a brave young girl, who was always positive and worked hard to make things right.

When the book took a turn towards OnlyFans, I wasn’t sure I would continue let alone like it, but this story was written so well! I cannot wait to see it as a movie!

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for an advanced copy of Margo’s Got Money Troubles. I decided to DNF this book at 73%. I liked Margo and really felt for her in her situation of finding herself pregnant by her college professor. It made me sad that her mom did not support her and kind of turned her away. I did appreciate that she had the baby and that she does her very best for him. I also enjoyed the relationship she rebuilt with her father, and that he tried to help her in many ways. I struggled with how Margo ended up supporting herself with this Only Fans website and kept waiting for her to find another way out, but the plot just fell further down this path and I kept reading and struggled with all the choices she was making. I think this book would appeal more to a younger audience.

Rufi Thorpe dazzles readers with her latest, MARGO'S GOT MONEY TROUBLES, in this witty, heartwarming, yet honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative.

This is an empowering coming-of-age portrait of a young working-class mother struggling financially, broke, and pregnant, with little assistance from others, doing what she must to survive. The author cleverly brings heart, soul, and humor as the main character (highly relatable) and supporting characters come alive on the page.

Read before watching- Coming to the screen! DEADLINE: Hot Series Package ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ Lands At Apple; Elle Fanning To Star With Nicole Kidman, Pair Will Produce With David E. Kelley, Dakota Fanning & A24.

About...

Margo is raised by a single mother who works at Bloomingdales and, prior to this, at Hooters. She is in college and has an affair with her (married English professor Mark) with children for six weeks and becomes pregnant. He wants nothing to do with the baby and informs her to get an abortion, as well as her mother.

Her mother is of little help. She is too interested in some preacher guy and wants nothing to do with a pregnant daughter and grandson.

Margo decides to keep the baby. She has a baby boy, Bodhi, and tries to bring him home to a house full of teen roommates. With the baby crying, they cannot study, and all leave her holding the rent on her own. She is a waitress but cannot hold on to the job and take care of a baby even trying her best. How will she work, attend college, and take care of a baby on her own?

Her estranged dad, Jinx (a former pro wrestler and heroin addict), shows up and moves in with her to help with the baby and help with the rent. This encounter gives her a chance to get to know her father. So funny!

However, things are tight financially, and Margo is resourceful. She is twenty years old, unemployed, alone, and needs cash. She starts an OnlyFans account with subscribers (we see the highs and lows), and her dad helps her with the tax stuff and other advice. She begins making money and has time for her young son. Her dad is a big help with the baby.

Margo enjoys the work and quickly gains subscribers, but her popularity brings trouble when Bodhi’s father learns what she’s up to and disapproves, leading to a fight for custody.

From Mark to her mom and stepdad, someone turns her into social services. Now they are threatening to take away her son. But she is smarter than they give her credit. With social services on her back, the baby's dad, drug screening for her dad, and other issues with her line of work, she risks losing her son.

However, Margo is resilient and tenacious and fights back with legalities and resources that help her fight to keep her son for a great ending!

My thoughts...

Innovative, clever, and quirky.

MARGO'S GOT MONEY TROUBLES is hilarious, and you will root for her until the end. I enjoyed her unconventional relationship with her dad and her love for her son in a world where things get crazy and complex, and there is a desperate need to survive. This story will teach you not to judge until you walk in someone else's shoes. Margo is an unforgettable heroine! Way to go.

Hilarious, hopeful, wise, tender, and heartwarming

I loved the author's take on life and how things cannot always be perfect. Life is hard and messy. It is about understanding your rights and fighting for what you want, and there is no shame in having an OnlyFans account.

A blending of motherhood, family drama, and coming of age with a literary twist. Readers will adore and highly recommend it— full of humor, heart, and thought-provoking. Wildly entertaining!

Recs...

This is for fans of the author, Kevin Wilson, Sally Hepworth, Dan Chaon, Fredrik Backman, Elizabeth Berg, David Nicholls, Lou Berney, Sara Westover, and Jeannette Walls.

Thanks to William Morrow and NetGalley for an advanced reading copy for review purposes.

blog review posted @
JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 5 Stars
Pub Date: June 11, 2024
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I just LOVED this book. Margo’s character and voice are just so different and unique - I was literally hooked on the first page.

The premise is odd and unconventional, but so is Margo and the cast of characters here. I laughed, I got anxious, I cringed, I stressed, I laughed again. We’ve got accidental pregnancy, WWE wrestling, unconventional parental relationships, gambling addiction, heroin addiction, OnlyFans, adult friendships, online relationships, you name it…and it all worked!!!

Margo’s character just totally makes it. I thought switching from Margo’s voice to outside of her was really well done and made her seem even more real. You can totally tell that this author is a mom - the realities of the newborn stage are just so so spot on.

There was a quote “when you fall in love with a book, is it the character or the author you’re falling in love with?”….and here, I think the answer might be both!! Definitely adding Rufi Thorpe to the autobuy list!

Thank you William Morrow and Rufi Thorpe for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. This beauty releases June 11!

Margo's Got Money Troubles is a book for everyone. It is because we have all had that freind that no matter what you tell them they do the opposite. Margo is that friend. She can't seem to get out of her own way until she figures it out for herself. It may not be the ending we want her to have but it's her ending. We shouldn't pass judgement on her and neither does the author of this very funny book, and who isn't in a mood to read something serious but fun in these crazy times!!!. In a nutshell we meet Margo a 20-something who thinks it's a good idea to sleep with her professor. She gets pregnant and decides to keep the baby and earn money doing an only fans page when her other job doesn't bring in the kind of money the page does. The author doesn't pass judgement on her and neither should you. We've all been to a place where we think we know the way to get out of something and all we actually do is make it worse. Margo really does her best and you will either root for her to succeed or be one of those readers who is like "I couldn't connect with the character." This book has already been picked up to be a TV series so make sure you read it now so you can be ahead of the game!! It'd a perfect summer read but it is defiently not a silly read. There are some srious issues in this novel that make you feel like you've learned something important about life when you put the book down. Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for the ARC.

I really enjoyed the first half of this book. Then it felt like there was a veering off the path for no real reason. It felt like the beginning of yet another dilemma was to extend the chapters as the story abruptly changed gears.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Margo's Got Money Troubles is a funny cringey tense read the whole way through, and I loved it.
I read it because the cover looked like a rip-off of "I want to die but I want to eat tteokbokki" (NOT the author's fault, they rarely have creative control over their covers and marketing). I recommend they change the cover so as to not steal from a POC author-but I am glad I read this book.
This book is an incredibly compassionate and non-judgemental view on a situation most people would look down on. It shows how young women find themselves in single-mother situations, the pressures and expectations from all sides.
I can't think of any other way to explain it, I typed out like 5 different drafts of more detail but honestly you should read it for yourself.

Thank you to netgalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

MARGO’S GOT MONEY TROUBLES is unlike anything I’ve ever read and I doubt I would have picked it up had I not seen a few glowing reviews from readers I trust. Plus, a TV series is currently in the works with Elle Fanning starring and producing (alongside Nicole Kidman, I might add)!

First and foremost, this book will not be for everyone. To start, the writing style is very quirky, but so unique, and it took me a minute but I ended up absolutely loving the way the story was told.

Now for the story: When Margo becomes a single mom at nineteen she finds herself in an unimaginable position and turns to OnlyFans to make ends meet. And how does she make her account a huge success, you ask? Well, she takes advice from her estranged pro-wrestler father.

This is mature but also weird. It’s equally irreverent and smart and it touches on important societal themes while also being downright hilarious. I truly loved it, but I don’t take things too seriously and it takes a lot to make me blush.

Margo is incredibly endearing. She’s a teenager forced to grow up very quickly and at times I wanted to shake the naivety right out of her but there were also moments that I found myself so impressed with her strength and character.

Margo’s father, a former pro-wrestler and current hot mess, was also an amazing character. I didn’t really want to root for him, but I couldn’t help myself. He’s flawed but so lovable and I am absolutely dying to see who they cast to play him in the Apple TV series.

The majority of this book is really fun but it honestly made me think so much about how quick we are to judge others when we know literally nothing about their circumstances. While I have nothing in common with Margo, I also have no idea what I would do in her situation. Her career might be unconventional and looked down upon, but she’s doing whatever she can to put her kid first just like any good mom would.

There were parts of this book that made me uncomfortable but also had me reevaluating my opinions on things and questioning why I had opinions on them in the first place. Basically, a huge round of applause for this phenomenal story that took me out of comfort zone, made me laugh out loud, and encouraged me to see a lot of things in a new light.

What a delightfully quirky and heartwarming story! I can see why pre-publication buzz has been so loud, it’s unique in storyline and characters. I do wish it had gone a little bit weirder or perhaps more literary in the idea of art, but that’s a personal opinion. The writing and story is extremely accessible and I think people will really enjoy this. Thanks to HarperCollins and netgalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

If you're looking for a book that is the right balance of funny, sweet, dark, uncomfortable and uplifting than Margo might be for you. This book follows a young Margo who discovers she is pregnant after a short-lived, ill-advised affair with her university professor. She decides to keep the baby despite her lack of help as she comes from an odd family mix. Her mother has pined for her father throughout her life but her father, a semi-famous, semi-retired pro wrestler has never settled. At first I thought this was just going to be about how hard it is to care for an infant but it moves on from that. Margo ends up discovering Only Fans as a way to both make money and be able to provide care for her child. The platform allows her the freedom to figure some of her stuff out and she gains some support along the way. She learns that she might not be perfect but neither are the people around her and maybe you don't have to be to be happy and love the others in your life well. It was funny and awkward and true. Worth picking up.

I enjoyed this novel about a young woman who has a relationship with her married professor, decides to keep the baby when she becomes pregnant and eventually creates an OnlyFans account to make money. But I was kind of bothered by the OnlyFans descriptions which got sort of detailed. I guess it’s my old-fashioned side. Just wasn’t into reading about it. Rufi Thorpe is an amazing, unique writer and I loved her previous novel The Knockout Queen. I enjoyed it a bit more than Margo. But both share an edgy, modern voice. I find her insights in the human connections between people very moving and would say she doesn’t need to lean so hard into the sex stuff going forward but I also feel she probably will anyway because that’s part of her style. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to review this arc.

I am a new fan of Rufi Thorpe! I absolutely loved this heartfelt, quirky book that was just so smartly written. As an out of touch millennial, I learned a ton about TikTok and OnlyFans and the world of influencers. It was hard not to root for Margo, although at times naive, she handled the stress of new motherhood and custody battles with grace. The relationship with her dad was so touching, and I absolutely hated her mother. This is a true underdog story, with many unique twists. Highly recommend!

This book was amazing! I rated it five stars. This is the most funniest relatable story I think I’ve ever read. It was hilarious, I was literally laughing out loud. Margo is a 20 year old who gets pregnant by her English teacher from her college. She decided to keep the baby and you just go into a whirlwind with her as she tries to survive and support herself and the baby. She’s unemployed, broke and almost evicted. Her estranged father comes back in her life and she lets him live with her in exchange for childcare. She decides to start an only fans and actually becomes a hit. Everyone should read this. As a young mom myself, I could relate to the struggle part of parenting young and making ends meet. What a great story.

GENERAL INFO

Margo's Got Money Troubles- a standalone

Pub Date:: 6/11/24, Read 6/7/24

Format: eBook, 368 kindle

Source: Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for this ARC 💜! I voluntarily give my honest review and all opinions expressed are my own.

Setting: LA

Genre: Adult/Women's Fic, Contemporary

Tropes: coming of age, family drama, motherhood, single parent, surprise pregnancy, custody, and child welfare

⚠️sex work (Only Fans), abortion mentioned, drug use, affair w/an older married man (19 vs 37), cheating

HEA/HFN ending: HEA

Epilogue Included: no

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Synopsis/Plot Summary: Margo finds herself 20 and pregnant after an affair with her English professor Mark. She decides to keep the baby knowing Mark wants nothing to do w/ her or baby. Having financial problems, she drops out of school and she turns to self employment on Only Fans. Her estranged father Jinx re-enters her life to help care for her son Bodhi, while her mother Shyanne sits back and judges her along with her new fiancé Kenny-a sugar daddy and religious zealot.

Jealy/Possy/OTT H/h : Shyanne, ex- roommate Becca, and Mark are jealous of Margo

Amount of Sex In The Book: nothing explicit

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION

Margo Millet- 20, in junior college, has affair w/ professor that ends w/an unplanned pregnancy. She has to grow up quickly and provide for son without much help.

Jinx Boone/James Millet- ex pro wrestler, Margo's estranged father. He was married and a had another family when Margo was born. He's an ex-drug addict, but in extreme pain from his career. He asks to stay with Margo in exchange for watching Bodhi.

Shyanne-Margo's mother is selfish and refuses to help Margo with the baby. She's judgmental about her job

Suzie-becomes Margo's roommate. BFF, and employee

Mark-Bodhi's father. He files for full custody of Bodhi after several months of no contact. He is married w/ 2 kids.

JB- a client Margo meets online who she gets to know personally and likes.

Becca-Margo's ex BFF and roommate

AUTHOR OVERVIEW: Rufi Thorpe-a new to me author

PERSONAL OVERVIEW

Overall Rating: 5⭐

Do You Recommend This Book: yes

Will You Re-read This Book: maybe

Would You Read More Books by this Author: yes

COMMENTS/NOTES: Other than JB being a bit creepy, Margo made good decisions despite her age and circumstances. She was forced to leave school because of Mark, bullied out of her apartment w/ a rent she could afford, and left alone by friends and family. She was desperate, and as a woman with children you do whatever you have to for your kids. Clearly she had issues with both her parents, and handled them as best as she could. Jinx was great for her and Bodhi, I loved the scenes with them just hanging out with the baby. When the courts and lawyers got involved, Margo showed her resourcefulness, and Jinx stepped up for her. Even with her and Jinx missteps they prevailed. I didn't like JB because he was a stalker, and felt if Margo pushed him he would turn on her. Margo still liked him, but I'm glad things ended on business.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles is an unexpected delight. It’s a frank whirlwind that takes the reader on the rollercoaster ride of what it means to be a young girl in your twenties who desperately and naively wants to be good, but keeps getting hit by tidal wave after tidal wave of “grown up” problems. Margo is quirky and raunchy and almost painfully blind to reality, and I spent much of this book imagining myself, as the narrator asks, back at age 20, sitting on my cheap futon beside my roommate and my crush as we cook up increasingly desperate schemes to make a little more money.

Points are deducted for a poor understanding of the tiktok content that a 20 year old in 2019 or early 2020 would create. The author’s attempt to write scripts for tiktok is simply out-of-touch with what a Gen Z creator and audience would find captivating enough to go viral, especially for creators trying to establish and sell a brand. It reeks of early Youtube “random” culture—at least 10 years out of date. Because these sequences dominate the second half of the novel and drive much of the plot, I did spend quite a lot of time cringing internally and asking myself, “Does Rufi Thorpe truly think this is what Young, Cool People like?”

Going into this blind was great, because nothing would've prepared me for Margo's Got Money Problems and the plot of the book. Margo was an extremely endearing character. I've never seen a character growing up through life so non-judgemental of herself and others, living in the now and just not thinking of the future. It was refreshing. What was right could've been wrong but what was wrong, could've been right. We're all just living life through societal norms, baby.

This book made me laugh, smile, and I got near emotional for some of these characters. It played all like a movie in my head (thank goodness it's going to be one). You can't help but root for her and feeling this sense of defense for Margo, like a close friend. Chaotic of a story in a good way but also very very lovable.

What was so interesting, was the switch from third and first person POV. The reasoning explained in the book right off the bat. But wow! It was smart. Rufi is a talented writer and I appreciated all of it.