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A review by beckykphillips
Come & Get It by Kiley Reid
emotional
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
This book made me feel like Chidi from The Good Place with the stomach ache-inducing anxiety over the CHOICES the characters made and I also cannot recommend this enough.
Come and Get It follows Millie Cousins, a 24 year old RA; Agatha Paul, a mid career literary professor; and a host of other characters all at the University of Arkansas. Agatha initially meets Millie after interviewing her residents for a book on marriage, but ends up pivoting to how college students think about money. Through a series of less than ethical decisions and situations, Millie finds herself in some incredibly uncomfortable situations. This story is exactly what my anxiety is made of - just a bunch of small decisions that shouldn’t be problematic on their own, but lead to awful consequences.
Kiley Reid has written an incredible novel and if you enjoyed her first novel, Such a Fun Age, you should absolutely read Come and Get It.
I received a free advanced copy of Come and Get It from Putnam Books in exchange for my honest review.
Spoilers for some of my reactions reading this book below.
I got increasingly uncomfortable with Agatha, especially as a researcher myself, when she told Millie she wouldn't be getting an IRB or do the interviews/listening in on residents with a release. The falsifying of quotes and exchanging of quotes between the girls really squicked me out. Halfway through this book I actually wrote out that "oof Agatha is about to fuck over Millie"
I was also SO with Millie on her discomfort of Rhyland and Collette making fun of Tyler’s sorority lawn theme and then deciding to steal it. But it was interesting to see her start to let things go/not fight that so hard as she started to become further entangled with Agatha. I enjoyed that Millie’s queer identity was explored and how she talked about her crushes on Josh and Agatha.
Come and Get It follows Millie Cousins, a 24 year old RA; Agatha Paul, a mid career literary professor; and a host of other characters all at the University of Arkansas. Agatha initially meets Millie after interviewing her residents for a book on marriage, but ends up pivoting to how college students think about money. Through a series of less than ethical decisions and situations, Millie finds herself in some incredibly uncomfortable situations. This story is exactly what my anxiety is made of - just a bunch of small decisions that shouldn’t be problematic on their own, but lead to awful consequences.
Kiley Reid has written an incredible novel and if you enjoyed her first novel, Such a Fun Age, you should absolutely read Come and Get It.
I received a free advanced copy of Come and Get It from Putnam Books in exchange for my honest review.
Spoilers for some of my reactions reading this book below.
I was also SO with Millie on her discomfort of Rhyland and Collette making fun of Tyler’s sorority lawn theme and then deciding to steal it. But it was interesting to see her start to let things go/not fight that so hard as she started to become further entangled with Agatha. I enjoyed that Millie’s queer identity was explored and how she talked about her crushes on Josh and Agatha.
Peyton fully getting off and being seen as the victim is so frustrating and kind of is a funhouse mirror to Kennedy’s accident with the dog. But Peyton seems to feel no remorse about anything that happened and I'm kind of still processing this.
Agatha just buying everyone off in the end really threw me, Robin was right to completely call Agatha out on her hypocrisy and bullshit. Tyler is just such a specific kind of mean girl and is so awful.
Millie getting fucked throughout this really broke my heart although I hope that she gets a good start with the house. That girl made dumb decisions that 20 year olds make and got the worst consequences of anyone out of the whole thing.