Margo's Got Money Troubles is a story about a single young woman who must find a way to make money while caring for her newborn son. She does not have a support group of people in her life, but as she figures out what works for her, she grows her support group. Rufi Thorpe reminds us that there is not only one way to live our lives. Our families can grow from what we need and nurture once we realize our personal judgments often prevent us from living the full lives we are meant to live.

When Margot gets pregnant by her professor, she must find a way to make a living as a single mom.
This! book! I adored every second of it, one of the quirkiest and most entertaining things I’ve read in a really long time. Her wrestler dad, the only fans, the CPS lady, I laughed until I cried at some parts.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for this ARC!

3.5 stars overall.
This was in tough for me to rate because of my naivete on what I was getting into. This character has way more than money troubles, and the way she chooses to deal with them is very questionable. However, because she chooses to take responsibility for her actions and take things on herself makes me respect her and grow to love her. If reading about boobs, porn, drug use, etc. makes you uncomfortable, you probably want to skip this one. If those things don't bother you and you enjoy a book about dealing with life changes, give it a try.

This book just about did me in, but in a good way. If all the bad things in life happen to one person in the span of a few years it’s Margo. Somehow she manages to keep it together, with the off and on, good and bad advice from her retired pro-wrestling dad, Jinx. She just wants to be a good person and doubts her self often for being as terrible as her mother.

Margo doesn’t give up no matter what the circumstances are, no matter how tough it gets. She has more life experience by the time she is 22 than most people do in their whole lives. She keeps taking hit after hit but always gets back up again. We watch her grow and learn from being a 19 year old, “stupid naive idiot” into this street smart, headstrong, amazing single mother, daughter, and business owner, whom faces every crisis head on. She loves her baby boy Bohdi so much, that she is forced to grow up very fast.

The book is written in first, third, and directly to the reader, which is confusing at first until you understand how the writing style aligns with the overarching theme.

The writing is also quite funny, the antidotes, the evil robot vacuum, the whole idea of Kenny and Shyanne, and every single spot on metaphor. I could only imagine the very unique characters like Suzie as a sparkly tree elf, Mark as an angry bridge troll, Jinx as The Undertaker, Rose as an actual animated manga character, and Margo running around with Bohdi strapped to her with one breast constantly hanging out. I fell in love with all of them, except Mark of course.

Thank you to NetGalley, Rufi Thorpe, and William Morrow for an advanced copy in return for my honest review.

I honestly don't know what to say about Margo's Got Money Troubles. The book was fantastic and weird and... I just can't describe the brilliance of this book! Equal parts literary work and social commentary, Rufi Thorpe takes on the stigma of single mothers, OnlyFans content creators, and so much more. Absolutely brilliantly done in both 3rd and 1st person perspectives.

"Margo's Got Money Troubles" by Rufi Thorpe is a fast moving read about a young mother, her dysfunctional family, friends, and unexpected resourcefulness in earning a living. Definitely eye opening. Thank you to the publisher, author and NetGalley for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

Margo's Got Money Troubles was an excellent and FUN read. I loved the dilemma and Margot was a lovable character. I'd read more from Thorpe any day

Margo’s Got Money Troubles, by Rufi Thorpe, is a bold, inventive, and very funny novel about a young woman cut adrift in a difficult, expensive world. My thanks go to NetGalley and William Morrow for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

Margo is the daughter of a Hooters waitress and a former pro wrestler, an absentee father with a family of his own; her mother had been his woman on the side. Consequently, Margo has always understood that she would have to hit the ground running when she grew up, and so she’s enrolled in a junior college. When the brief affair with her English professor leaves her pregnant, she has nobody reliable to advise her. The women she confides in urge her to terminate the pregnancy, and of course, the professor does, too; yet Margo likes the idea of becoming a mother, and it’s her fetus. Nobody can make her do anything. She decides to keep it.

Her mother is about to marry a man with money and conservative values, and she sees Margo as a loose cannon that just might upset the whole ship, so she tells her to terminate or be cut off.

Wow, Mom. Really?

Margo’s roommates hadn’t agreed to share an apartment with a baby. They need to sleep! They have to get up early!

I’m rolling my eyes. Part of me is thinking that Margo is about as dumb as they come; part of me is wondering why no author in this entire world is writing—or, more likely, why no major publishing house is publishing—novels in which a young woman chooses to have an abortion and take back her body and her life. But I’m overthinking, because soon, Margo—who after all, is just young, naïve, and rudderless—admits her error. She loves her little boy, but she had no idea he would be so expensive, or that motherhood would be so difficult. She tells her father, who re-enters her life as her mother steps away,

“’I shouldn’t have had him,’ as though some rip cord had been pulled inside her. ‘I know that, okay? Everyone told me it would ruin my life and it did. They were right, and I was stupid, and I didn’t get it. Okay? But now I’m here.’ And her father, who strangely enough becomes the most reliable adult in her life, says, ‘Yes. Now we’re here.’”

Later, Margo will comment that nothing can make a person pro-choice like having a baby.

Margo has been waiting tables, but she can’t find child care, and when she brings the baby to work, she’s fired. And the truth is, she doesn’t like leaving her baby. Then one day, while looking at her naked self in a full length mirror, she observes that she has huge boobs for the first time in her life. Men would pay to see this. She opens an account on OnlyFans.

And so this controversial choice becomes the crux of the story. Some friends reject her, and her mother has really had it with her now. But there are a lot of meaty conversations that are thought provoking, and so, even though this old lady schoolteacher reviewer is mighty uncomfortable reading about an online sex worker’s film process, there are related questions that cannot be ignored. For example, Jinx—her father—advises her against it, saying that she shouldn’t get mixed up with these kinds of girls, and she asks him, “What are ‘those kinds of girls’?” And it’s true. A man can send his dick pix out into the world any number of times and places, and whereas many will consider these gross, or obscene, which they are, how many people will condemn the guy’s entire character, his moral fiber, for having done it? So the double standard is screaming to be recognized.

Margo goes through a lot of grief, defending custody of her son when the skeevy professor resurfaces, as well as having to deal with housing crises and other problems. But the central issue lurking in the shadows is that of a young mother choosing sex work as a career.

I have to tell you quite frankly that I was way out of my comfort zone through much of this book. I am probably not part of its target audience, despite the fact that I was approached to cover it. Partway in, I considered not finishing it, but the quality of the writing is so strong that I kept going, and I’m glad I did.

The story is told from a third person omnipotent perspective, but it shifts in a surprising and funny way, and that’s all I will say about that, lest I ruin it. I wonder from time to time if we have an unreliable narrator, but this is more than that. This unusual point of view a brave choice, and I think she carries it off well.

There are a lot of worthwhile discussions that can spring from this novel; it’s fertile territory, if you’ll pardon the expression, for book clubs. It’s also being adapted for Apple TV. I recommend this book for any feminist that likes to laugh, and isn’t afraid to think outside the box.

Rufi Thorpe is an author whose voice and style are just the right combination of quirky, weird, and endearing. While her style is singular, the best comparison I can make is a cross between Kevin Wilson and Annie Hartnett (Unlikely Animals and Rabbit Cake). But, she is truly uniquely herself. Her touch with that combination is what makes this random sounding premise work so well. Margo is the daughter of a former Hooters waitress and a pro wrestler who has been largely absent from her life. While attending junior college, she has an affair with her professor and winds up pregnant. Margo now has to figure out how to support herself and her baby, so she begins to experiment with OnlyFans. There is SO MUCH in this book (loneliness, motherhood, untraditional family dynamics, money, and art), but it works because Thorpe relentlessly leads with her characters and these characters are easy to root for. A 5 star read from one of my auto-buy authors!

A lot has been said about this story, so I’m going to focus on one thing I really loved and one thing I was surprised by.

What I loved: I’m obsessed with how Margo switches between first and third person, and how a class she took in college called “unnatural voices: taking narration to the edge” is the explainer for this switch. I’ve thought so much about *why* Rufi Thorpe did this - is it used in moments when Margo needs to distance herself from events and it’s easier to explain in third vs. first? Or is it a reference to the unreliable relationship we all have with how we tell our stories, how there’s always a slight dissonance between what happens and how it’s perceived externally, something that for Margo is very caught up in how she expresses herself in different spaces online. Regardless of the why, this aspect of the book really made me think, which made the reading experience that much more fun.

Something that caught me by surprise was the deep dive into social media strategy. Obviously the social strategy I do at work is very different from what Margo handles in this book, but the mindset of someone learning how to manipulate the platforms for the first time was fascinating. Social media in books is often cringey to me or makes me feel burnt out since I spend all day thinking about it, but this was very well done.

This seems to be one of the hot books of the day and I get why. I enjoyed it. It’s silly and well written, with a creative structure and endearing main character. I’d read a sequel and will watch the adaptation.

Margo is a mess, but we love her! I was obsessed with this audio. It’s narrated by Elle Fanning who is set to play Margo in the TV series. This was such a unique coming-of-age story full of laugh-out-loud moments and so much emotion too! This one will end up on favorites for the year!

This is unlike any book I have read before. However, it is definitely a real world example of what could be going on next door.
There were moments where I laughed out loud and times I was cringing at how naive Margo was.

Definitely kept me interested because you just didn’t know what was going to happen next.

Margo's in trouble. After an affair with her English professor and resulting surprise pregnancy, she decides to drop out of college to raise the child that no one wants her to have. Without adequate childcare, she loses her job and needs to make money fast before getting evicted from her apartment. Turning to OnlyFans for cash, she finds a way to channel the creativity she once poured into her writing into a paying job, all while trying to fight for custody, fend off child services, and keep her employment a secret.

Margo's Got Money Troubles is the kind of heartwarming story that becomes more endearing because of the struggles faced by the protagonist. The more you see her rise to the challenge of young motherhood on her own, the more you root for her to succeed. For almost every decision that Margo made, I found myself choosing the opposite. But, like her parents and friends, I came to respect that she's capable of living her life without my blessing. The writing in this book is insightful and interesting and shines a light on the double standard exacted on women and mothers.

TL;DR: I mean, no surprise, I LOVED LOVED LOVED the latest book from Rufi Thorpe, she who brought us one of darkest, funniest books of the pandemic, 2020’s THE KNOCKOUT QUEEN. She’s back, this time with Margo and her money problems, a struggling single mom who ends up on OnlyFans trying to make ends meet. The book is raw and funny and emotional and heartbreaking and did I mention my stomach hurt from laughing? I loved these characters so much, in particular the relationship between Margo and her estranged father and washed-up former professional wrestler Jinx. If I had any issues with the book, I wish there was a scene that wrapped up Margo’s storyline with her mother Shyanne, but overall, this book is excellent.

4.5 stars - rounded up to 5! This book managed to be heart-warming, funny, while also containing sentences and social commentary that took my breath away.

Margo, a community college student, finds herself pregnant after a short affair with her married professor. When her single mother and the child's father both encourage her to abort the pregnancy, she finds herself determined to keep and raise the child. Due to a unforeseen set of circumstances, she finds herself living with her former-pro-wrestler father, raising a newborn, and making ends meet by running an OnlyFans page that becomes ultra-successful after she collaborates with other OnlyFans creators on a comedic series that goes viral on TikTok. In the meantime, she also finds herself at the center of battles both legal and personal wit her parents, father of her child, and the government.

While this novel warmed my heart and made me laugh, I found it's impact was most profound in how it depicted how difficult the system makes it for single mothers to not only provide and raise their children, but to do so without judgement. This story made me want to be a little kinder and open-minded which I think the world could use more of these days.

Rufi Thorpe's "Margo’s Got Money Troubles" is a captivating and humorous exploration of a young woman's struggle to carve out a place for herself in a world that seems determined to make things difficult. Thorpe's storytelling shines through her portrayal of Margo, a character who is both endearing and incredibly real. Margo’s journey from a naïve college student to a savvy entrepreneur is portrayed with a blend of humor and raw honesty. The novel's strength lies in its ability to balance comedic elements with poignant observations about the challenges of modern life. Margo’s interactions with her estranged father Jinx, whose wrestling background brings an unexpected layer to their relationship, provide both comic relief and emotional depth. Thorpe’s writing is sharp and perceptive, capturing the absurdities and triumphs of Margo’s unconventional path. The narrative explores the complexities of internet fame and personal branding with both wit and sensitivity, raising questions about authenticity and the cost of success. "Margo’s Got Money Troubles" is more than just a tale of financial desperation; it’s an empowering story about taking control of one’s narrative and finding strength in unexpected places. Through Margo's trials and triumphs, Thorpe delivers a thoughtful and entertaining read that resonates with anyone who has ever struggled to make their mark in a world that often feels indifferent. In conclusion, Rufi Thorpe's latest novel is a delightful and insightful read, brimming with humor and heart. It is a testament to the power of storytelling and the resilience required to overcome the obstacles life throws at us.

This was an absolute delight. The premise is absolutely off the wall, 19 year old college student Margot has an affair with her professor, gets pregnant, drops out of college and starts an OnlyFans account to pay the bills. But there are so many other quirky characters that spice it up. Her mother, who seems to mean well, but is caught up in her own world. Her ex pro-wrestler dad who struggles with drugs and fidelity, her lovely roommate Suzie and the many other people she interacts with because of OnlyFans.

This was not my normal book choice, but it was laugh out loud funny and so immensely heartwarming. Great read.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a digital ARC of this title!

Huge thank you to @williammorrow @librofm and @netgalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. This audio narrated by Elle Fanning is so entertaining.
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Let me start off by saying this is going to be a new tv series on AppleTv and there was a bidding war before the book even came out. It’s being adapted by David E Kelley and executive produced by Nicole Kidman, Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning. This alone had me so excited!
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Now the book when described sounds straight up bananas, but I loved it. Margot and is a twenty year old single mom and the daughter of an ex-Hooters waitress and ex-Pro-wrestler. She is running out of money fast. When her dad, Jinx shows up at her door asking to move in she agrees. She’s never lived with him before and he can help with childcare, but she still needs to solve her money issue. She experimentally creates an OnlyFans page and money starts coming in. Her dad was a Heel in wrestling (bad guy) so she starts to take his advice and her “character” on OnlyFans becomes more popular but with more popularity comes its own set of problems. This book is highly entertaining, wierd, and funny with a colorful cast of characters and I loved it. I cannot wait to watch this series!
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This storyline was not what I was expecting. I ended up listening to the audiobook version which was really well done. The narration held my attention and I couldn't stop listening. This is definitely a unique read but it was refreshing to read a different storyline.