A Quick Note On This Review: This article includes affiliate links to Bookshop.org as a way of supporting both local bookshops and my own ability to write.
Margo is a community college student who has found herself a willing participant in her English professor’s affair. Margo knows that her professor probably won’t leave his wife for her – and she’s kind of indifferent about that fact – but after several weeks she finds out that she’s pregnant. With both the professor and her single mother who conceived Margo as part of an on-again-off-again relationship with a married pro wrestler urging an abortion, Margo decides to have the baby and quickly finds out that it upends her life in ways she didn’t realize. While Margo battles against unemployment, eviction, and the manifold people who want to tell her how to mother, she finds an unexpected solution in Onlyfans that’s both practical and feels more authentic than the cookie-cutter life she previously envisioned for herself.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe was an interesting story because the promotional copy made it feel like the story would revolve around a cliched story involving a torrid affair based on exploitation that causes a promising young woman to turn to sex work to survive. Many stories that rely on these tropes have been a little too on the nose for me in the past, but reviews of the book pointed to a more nuanced – and humorous – take on the situation than I originally envisioned. Listening to these reviews was the best thing I could have done.
While Margo’s Got Money Troubles does play with the traditional tropes of a professor having an affair with a student and the exploitation society forces on women who are in the position of having an unplanned child, the novel offers up a nuanced meditation on bodily autonomy, patriarchal structures of work, double standards with regard to imbalanced relationships, and even the ways women tear each other down. Margo doesn’t necessarily want to have a child, but when her own mother demands she get an abortion, Margo decides to go through with having the child.
The novel takes that opening and lays out a series of events that see Margo abandoned by her mother, judged by her peers, supporting her drug-addicted father after he leaves rehab, and raising a young child while turning her OnlyFans account into a content marketing career. There are undoubtedly elements that deal with exploitation and immorality, but the core of the story revolves around the resilience of women who have to live in a society that’s designed for someone other than them.
For casual readers, Margo’s Got Money Troubles would appeal to those who are looking for a substantive, yet light story dealing with motherhood, economic exploitation, and coming of age stories that focus on family life. Further, Thorpe’s novel could appeal to anyone who likes novels that champion social justice causes through playing up the absurdity of some situations in order to highlight a point.
For writers, Thorpe’s novel offers a unique blend of social commentary and humor, which could be used as a template for those looking to write similar novels. In Margo, writers can also find a character who is simultaneously victimized circumstances but finds ways of fighting back without the story devolving into the moral injury that society does to people like Margo, which makes her an interesting archetype of a strong female protagonist that writers should seek to emulate. As with all books, it’s only a stepping stone, but Margo’s Got Money Troubles would give most writers starting out an enjoyable adventure and template for them to follow should they want to keep things entertainingly light without sacrificing substance.
If you’re interested in reading the book and want to support local bookstores as well as my work, consider using this affiliate link: Margo’s Got Money Troubles.
What’s Next?
I am an avid reader and have quite a few thoughts on how some books could benefit both people that want to be entertained and those looking to sharpen their literary skills.
If you’re interested in finding out more about what I’ve been reading – and how it could benefit you – I will be publishing those thoughts on Fridays on a weekly basis. Check back next week for a discussion of Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries!
The Writerly Review 