I can't recommend this book highly enough! The dialogue was funny and realistic and I loved the setting of Fayetteville. You were rooting both for and against the characters throughout the book- they were nuanced and authentic. The professor-student relationship trope is often unappealing and flat, but this book approached the topic from a new perspective.

I loved the author's first novel and wasn't sure that this one would live up to my expectations, but it was a delightful read start to finish. It

I love Kiley Reid’s debut novel and was excited to read Come and Get It. The book started off slow and I almost stopped reading because Millie’s introduction dragged on with so much unnecessary and frankly, uninteresting, detail. Before I quit reading, I wanted to get to the multi-POV and I’m so glad I stuck it out. Once I was further into the book, I couldn’t put it down and enjoyed the world Reid crafted. There were a few too many characters in this book, but the three main characters will well-developed and engaging.

As an alum of University of Iowa, I was impressed with how Reid nailed the descriptions of Iowa City and its unique culture while telling Kennedy’s story. Reid has an incredible ability to write dialogue and multi-faceted characters who are deep, empathetic and frustrating at the same time.

I didn’t love this as much as Such a Fun Age (a 5-star read for me) but overall, I rate it 3 stars. I look forward to reading what she writes in the future.

Uhh I’m really surprised I finished this book. So many characters that didn’t need to be in the story. I didn’t feel like there was an actual plot.

Much like many reviewers, I loved Such a Fun Age and was so excited to read Come and Get It. Unfortunately it was not nearly as good and part of the reason why, in my opinion, is that the southern accents were incredibly distracting. I was having to translate in my head as I was reading and it really took away from the joy of reading for me. In addition to that, something about the way this story was written made it confusing to follow. I kept having to re-read paragraphs and pages to remember who no was reading about.
I did like the storyline and still think this author is a talented writer. This one just didn’t do if for me like her last one did.

I'm more than a quarter of the way through this novel that seems mostly about women on a college campus. It's professionally written. The prose and dialogue are well-handled. But the plot, at least so far, meanders in places and drags in others Plus, the characters are not all that interesting or conflicted. Having completed at least the first 100 pages, I'm finding myself not at all engaged, much less interested in learning what happens next. So, this will be a DNF for me. But it is professionally written and others may well feel differently.

My thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with an electronic ARC. The foregoing is my independent opinion.

Sometimes a writer's style and your own reading style do not match up and I'm afraid this was the case here. I couldn't keep the students straight as they all spoke with spelled-out southern accents. (Tyler is Tahler? Really?)

It seems to be the story of Millie, a 24 year old senior and RA at the Fayetville-located UA. Or maybe it's the story of Agatha, an older (38) visiting professor there researching another book. The minor characters were difficult to keep straight. Is it Kennedy who is the slob, and too close to her mother? And which one is Jenna again? And did I really care to know?

Apologies to Kiley Reid for not liking the way she writes because I can tell she is talented. But for this reader I did not begin to enjoy the novel until the very end when some action came into the mainly plotless story.

Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC copy for an early read.

This book took a long time to say very little. I liked some of the characters and I felt like it was building up to something, but the pay off was a bit meh.
Thank you, Net Galley!

I enjoyed this book a lot 5/5 stars. Kiley Reid has a great way of creating characters that are realistic and love-able. She also does a great job of bringing up race, gender and sexuality in a way that still fits with the story. Overall, this was a very well written, interesting, engaging read.

I couldn’t put this book down! Start to finish, this book seriously delivers on drama, tension, riveting characters, and plot lines that you can’t look away from. Just like in Such a Fun Age, Reid uses common and cringey instances and interactions to lay bare some of the crud of our society and culture. She does so in a way that doesn’t feel heavy-handed, but rather feels completely natural. I’ll read anything she writes!

🌟🌟🌟
“Such a Fun Age” was one of my standout books last year, so I was *ecstatic* to read an advanced copy of Kiley Reid’s upcoming “Come and Get It” 🥳 There’s a few thematic similarities between the two novels—primarily being power dynamics between older and younger women, and the oppressiveness of racist microaggressions—but ultimately I didn’t love this one nearly as much as the former. I’ll try to break down some of the elements that factored into the 3 star rating!

The great: Reid’s prose continues to be delightful to read. She is so talented when it comes to seamlessly adding in world and character-specific details. And I loved Millie most of all; she was such a complex character. Her backstory, coupled with her current relationship dynamics, made her chapters the most intriguing to read.

The less-than-great: there’s a lot of characters, and it’s difficult to discern early on who is central to the overall story. Because the narrative is told from three perspectives—Millie, a dorm RA; Kennedy, a dorm resident; and Agatha, a visiting creative nonfiction professor—it’s easy to feel unattached to them. Or, possibly even worse, feeling as though the characters don’t even know their own place in the story; this was the case with Tyler, an antagonistic resident in the dorm. In a story that’s being described as character-driven, everyone feels like a passenger.

It felt like the bones of a solid story were here, but the execution didn’t create the same magic from Reid’s previous novel. I still have high hopes for whatever she ends up writing next, but this is a book I don’t plan on revisiting when it’s published in January.

Thanks to @netgalley and @putnambooks for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I devoured Such A Fun Story, but couldn’t get into this one. Plot was very slow and did not hook me at all.

I loved Reid's debut novel, Such A Fun Age, and was eager to read her sophomore novel. It's difficult not to compare the two. While Such A Fun Age deals with a serious topic with sensitivity, it is an easy and enjoyable read. Come and Get It is breezy read but the subject matter doesn't feel sensitively handled, leading the climax to feel like a mockery of the characters and their choices. I enjoyed the college setting and some of the characters, but there were large sections of the book that felt unnecessary. Many of the characters don't interact until well past the half-way mark, and many early chapters are dedicated to a romantic relationship between one of the protagonists, Agatha, and her girlfriend Robin. Robin feels somewhat peripheral to the plot and her minimal contribution towards the conclusion of the story could have been accomplished with far less detail about how she met Agatha, the evolution of their relationship, and their many arguments. Overall, I found the novel disappointing and a bit of a let down after Such A Fun Age.

It pains me to write this review - I’m still a tremendous fan of Kiley Reid’s but was disappointed with her latest novel, Come and Get It. Part of what I loved about Reid’s debut, Such a Fun Age, was the dialogue element. Reid is masterful in how she uses interactions between characters to confront difficult, nuanced topics. Highly recommend Such A Fun Age for the complexity of the characters and how they evolve (or don’t) over the course of the plot.

Unfortunately, Come and Get It doesn’t succeed in building three-dimensional characters. Reid almost gets there with Millie and less so with Agatha, but it feels like a light version of what the book needs. We only skim the surface, and typically what we find is a character who is either unlikeable so you lose interest or they become so much a caricature of themselves that it’s hard to connect with them as people. I understand Reid’s choice to purposely make the characters cringeworthy but it almost became too unbelievable (e.g., some of the lingo overheard in the dorm… I just don’t believe Gen-Z is saying any of that. Ryland translated, everyone else fell flat). Also, the pop-culture references didn’t feel like a great match either.

Adding to this, the plot and conclusions for each character are not sturdy. The entire handling of Kennedy’s character and plot was a flop. The climax to her storyline was steep and then its reveal was mildly ridiculous. I also thought that the crumbling scene between Peyton and Kennedy was corny and again, not something I believe would happen. There are major holes - how is Agatha known to be at the scene, but somehow Kennedy is led to believe it was all a figment of her imagination (and that entire incident itself, like the gravity of the behavior vs her conflicting pre-meditation/lack of memory post, is almost insulting). The ending, in general, felt lazy to me.

The whole time I kind of wondered if I was reading YA. That’s the best way I can summarize the vibe.

Again, highly recommend Such A Fun Age, but would pass on this as a recommendation to fellow readers.

After I finished this book all I could think was: That was a waste of time. A coming of age character study set in a southern college, this felt like someone was making a list of possible characters and ideas for a future book. Normally I love a book with no plot and just vibes, but even the vibes here weren’t good. We follow so many characters that it feels a bit jumbled, and I didn’t really enjoy my time with any of them. I don’t need a character to be likeable, but I do prefer them to be original and interesting. There were so many ideas brought up, but nothing went into depth. It felt like a bunch of subjects were introduced and then nothing compelling was said about them, they were just there. The worst part was the dialogue, it was so cringey and unrealistic that alone almost made me DNF.

ARC provided by NetGalley.

LOVED this book! So Much! Kiley Reid has the kind of writing style that just drew me in from the first page. This is the story of an event that happened in a Dorm at University of Arkansas. Millie, a resident advisor in Belgrade Dorm, gets involved in the lives of her fellow residents, as well as in the life of a researching professor. Chaos ensues. People pay for their mistakes. Life moves on.

I loved dorm life when I was attended a major University in the South, and this story could have so easily have happened in my dorm. Reid knows how to write the way teenaged college girls from the South speak. Reading the dialogue in this book was just as fun and engaging as the story itself.

Highly recommend - I can't wait for Reid's next one!

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review Come and Get It.

Kiley expertly explores issues related to class and race among college aged students on a southern university campus. The characters are well developed and intriguing. This was a fantastic, thought provoking novel that I couldn't put down.

⭐️⭐️ (2 out of 5 stars)

I was so excited to receive an ARC of Kiley Reid’s sophomore novel, Come and Get It. I loved her debut Such a Fun Age and found it so compelling and fresh. Unfortunately, this one fell flat for me, and I didn’t really enjoy it - but I’d still urge you to try it out if you were a fan of Such a Fun Age! Reid’s sharp wit rings true here, I could just not get interested in this story.

My major issue here is that there is no discernible plot. There are EIGHT main focal characters and even more supporting characters. So much happening and it all felt rather meaningless? Literally, I had no idea what was happening or where the story was going until like 80% of the way in.

Kiley Reid once again looks at class and race in an off-beat way that oftentimes feels rather satirical. I really enjoy this about her writing! I think this had good potential, but needed more focus and a driving storyline to keep my interest.

I loved this book and this author. It was perfection. The cover really grabs you in. 5 star read for sure.

There were too many characters, which made the plot hard to follow. It had potential, but don't think I would recommend to my fellow reader.

not necessarily the follow up to Such a Fun Age that I hoped for. there are interesting moments in this book, with some intriguing ideas and beautifully written passages- but I don't think it ever found its footing or even decided on what it was trying to convey. too many characters and too little plot. a lot of very natural dialogue and character development, so if it was trying to capture 'real life' it was successful...but sometimes real life is boring!!

I reviewed an e-arc and will be intrigued to see if any changes are made between now and Jan 2024.