#Margo’s Got Money Troubles

[anxious-nooodle-reads]

“Margo’s Got Money Troubles”

by Rufi Thorpe

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 // ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

See my full review below

At the beginning of the novel, I was not confident I would be getting through the entire thing. Third person POV is not my preference when reading, and the fact that throughout the book, it switched from third to first person, even throughout the chapters, had thrown me off. However, by the time I got through chapter five, I was fully immersed in the story, and I knew I had to continue on.

The amount of times I let out a laugh while reading this book would have to be in my top two of 2025 so far. The topic of the story being such a realistic situation made me believe that this was going to full-heartedly be a drama. The humor during what can be traumatic times is desperately needed.

While I do not personally have children, I am uncomfortably familiar with the financial struggle that many individuals have. Reading through Margo’s struggles with not only money, but her roommates, such as her father, her parental relationships, and her commitment to building a good life for her son was something truly special and insanely realistic for being a piece of fiction.

It is crazy to think that many women (and men) struggle with older influences getting sexually involved with them, having a child, and then pretending that they should not have anything to do with said child. Margo clearly gets accused of being naive on how the relationship with a professor could have turned, but as it is pointed out, the older party should have known better anyway.

I loved that this could be seen as a true story as the situations are all too similar to what goes on in our economy today. The only reason I did not give it a five stars was due to the writing going back and forth between perspectives by the same person.

Recommend? Yes. It’s a humorous, easy read

Reread? I would happily.

Spicy? Stream at most. Makeouts get mentioned as well as sex, but there’s no actual detail

[annihilate-this-week]

“She’d originally called Planned Parenthood. They wouldn’t do an ultrasound to confirm pregnancy until you were eight weeks along, though. Pregnancy math was cruel. The moment you found out you were pregnant, you were already at four weeks. Waiting four more weeks to see if she was pregnant or not seemed absurd, so she called around until she found an ob-gyn who was willing to see her at six weeks.”

— From “Margo's Got Money Troubles” by Rufi Thorpe

Think about this next time you hear about six-week abortion bans. Yes, this is fiction, but it describes the very real situation a typical American woman finds herself in if she gets pregnant. Six-week abortion bans are pretty much just outright bans on abortion. Don’t be fooled.

[rowan-is-reading]

Hhhhhhhhhh

Ok if you read 1 literary fiction book this year, let it be Margo’s Got Money Troubles

[fitzgeraldo-s]

[andreabadgley]

New year, new book.

I forgot to post my final book of 2024 — Haruki Murakami’s The City and Its Uncertain Walls. Like all Murakami, it was delightfully fucked up.

[bethanyactually]

Who was it who put Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe on my radar?

I cannot remember and I wish I did. My hold came up at the library recently and I tore through that book so fast--it was weird and challenging and hilarious and smart and extremely enjoyable! But it's been long enough since I placed the hold that I have no idea who prompted it. If it was you, thank you! If it wasn't you, please read this book unspoiled, except for this quote which needs no context:

When that grew boring, she scrolled Twitter, which was like being bathed in the dirty water of other people's thoughts.

[unimportant-ramblings]

Most stressed I've ever been

[fairyysoup]

strong start to the year or wtvr

my goodreads

[tafadhali]

Top 10 New-to-Me Reads of 2024

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan Poor Things by Alisdair Gray Himawari House by Harmony Becker A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

[judgingbooksbycovers]

Margo's Got Money Troubles: A Novel

By Rufi Thorpe.

[kalereviews8782]

Review: Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

Enjoyment: 5 / Prose: 5 / Characters: 5 / Plot: 5

pros: unique style, made me laugh, JINX, Thorpe understands capitalist isolation and it made me sob

con: I kind of hate Margo's mother, sorry (I may have mother issues)

It's tempting just to tell people: read this! read this, with no spoilers, no introductions, no synopsis (the cover art and title here do NOT do this book justice). But I have so much to say.

It's been a long time since I read a book this fast. Maybe about 6 months or so (this tracks, as what I thought was my life fell off the tracks about 6 months ago). This made me remember: I will always have books. I will always have these stories. Stories that catch me off guard- because, based on the synopsis of this book, I wasn't sure how I would feel. I mean, a young mother, babies, wrestling? Not necessarily my favorite topics.

Kale, for a long time, has been caught between the real and unreal. Caught between being their "true" self and worried that they're always acting, always wearing a mask. Are they always dissociating? Are they always a step back, watching themselves from a distance? Is it less real, to step back this way, is it healthy?

And then you step back into the first person. It feels a little more easy, but a little less like you know what is happening to yourself. I know less when I am viewing everything from myself. When I step back into third person, I see more around me.

Does any of this make sense?

The shift that the main character in Margo's Got Money Troubles makes, from first to third person, back and forth, was something I thought would be challenging at first, just a pretentious writing exercise, but instead it's one of the most creative and engaging styles that I've read in a while. It became relatively easy, to be viewing the character that Margo makes of herself, and then to be experiencing everything from Margo's actual point of view in the next paragraph.

My thoughts in this review are mostly focused on the style and presentation of the novel, but I love everything else about it too. The characters just about have the most real and distinct voices I've ever seen, the dialogue is natural, the plot itself is addicting (new baby, family issues, OnlyFans, wrestling, paternity, new romances, existential dread, loneliness, shame & judgment, etc), and there's so much to be said about the way we view ourselves and the way we see others as "characters". Also, much to be said about how loneliness (maybe due to this struggle with point of view and realness) may be the underlying cause of...everything.

[42ds-too]

Well, I just finished it two days ago, but...

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

[theonlyacceptableevalana]

It pains me that no one who worked on the audiobook of Margo's Got Money Troubles knew how to pronounce Vegeta.

[lostinaflashforward]

Le news della settimana!

[sleepandblog]

Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

started: january 1st completed: january 10th rating: 4.5 stars

incredible first read of the year! a funny, emotional novel with an easily lovable main character and also some randomly really great quotes throughout. family drama, relationship drama, legal drama, this book is really for gossip lovers. it's so easy to root for margo from the very beginning. she makes some good and some bad decisions, but you can't help but see where she's coming from no matter what. the ending was satisfying but the real joy was the journey lol i sound so annoying but i'm serious. i did not expect to love this book so much! i definitely recommend it- especially if you like drama and if you maybe spend a little bit too much time online.

[stupidphototricks]

I know it won't get much of an audience but I was feeling like I wanted to post what else I'm reading besides Discworld, just some quick little book reviews/reactions or something, and I realized hey guess what, I can do that?

So here we go with Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe, and where do I even start? It's sort of an unholy, unlikely, unexpectedly funny amalgam of many things, like:

skeevy college professors (cw)

imperfect parents

new parenthood

child care (is broken)

cps (is kind of broken)

so many catch-22s for a broke single new parent

porn(-adjacent) (cw)

building your brand

blurring the lines between fantasy and reality

what to do with your unfinished creative writing degree

pro wrestling

addiction (cw)

addiction recovery

standing up for yourself

people contain multitudes, even the ones that initially just seem to be huge jerks

And Margo's journey turns out to be kind of amazing. I started out a bit dubious about this book but I was all in by the end. One warning, there is a stylistic choice of switching between third- and first-person that I didn't 100% care for, but I understand why it was done and it actually works fairly well.

In conclusion, please enjoy being knocked for a loop by these quotes:

Love was not something, I realized, that came to you from outside. I had always thought that love was supposed to come from other people, and somehow, I was failing to catch the crumbs of it, failing to eat them, and I went around belly empty and desperate. i didn't know the love was supposed to come from within me, and that as long as I loved others, the strength and warmth of that love would fill me, make me strong. -- Rufi Thorpe, Margo's Got Money Troubles

Because that's all art is, in the end. One person trying to get another person they have never met to fall in love with them. -- Rufi Thorpe, Margo's Got Money Troubles