Margo's Got Money Troubles
If you enjoyed this review, please consider purchasing this book from my Amazon Associates link (applies to Kindle purchases as well): https://amzn.to/4hc5LWZ. The commissions I receive from your purchase help pay for the costs of running this website. Thanks for your support!
I read this as part of a book club and lemme tell ya, it’s an excellent pick. Some people didn’t like the book, others thought it was fine, and of course, I obnoxiously shouted its praises from the rooftops; regardless, we all agreed that it made for a juicy discussion. We went around the room and each shared our roses and thorns, so I’ll do the same here.
General roses focused on the fact that it’s an unusual read that takes you out of your comfort zone. Margo, the one with money problems, decides to follow through with her pregnancy even though she’s broke, spiritually lost, and the father wants nothing to do with them. Her naivety leads her to make morally ambiguous decisions as she’s surrounded by a cast of characters who somehow both enrich and burden her life. My personal rose is that it captured nuance very well. For example, Jinx, one of the most flawed characters, is very endearing; his honesty and earnestness put a bandaid on some of his most brazen mistakes. I also appreciated the author’s experimental writing style. Like in The Things They Carried, the author plays with meta-fiction, which self-consciously breaks the fourth wall and examines its own writing structure. For example, Margot acknowledges that she moves back and forth between first and third-person narration depending on how much empathy she has for her formal self (i.e. this fictional character says hey, what I’m about to tell you is really embarrassing, so I’m going to distance myself from it a little). As Kendall, one of the book club attendees, noted, books tend to fall on a spectrum whereby one side is entertaining plot and the other is thought-provoking writing. I believe that this book finds a balance between both.
Some people’s trash is other people’s treasure, and while I loved the graphic sexcapades that Margo experiments with as she figures out how to make money for her and her son, others labeled the vulgarity as a hard thorn. Some also didn’t find Margo particularly likable, especially in the beginning when she was in peak apathy mode, making it hard to feel sorry for her when she faced the consequences. It’s stress-inducing and you want to shake her, begging her to act more responsibly. My thorns are more minor. Some of the characters were underdeveloped (Becca, her mom). They had a lot of nuance potential but didn’t get much time in the book. I also agree with the crew that when Margo is in her TikTok era, some of the scenes are hard to picture as a reader, so it isn’t easy to buy into the idea that she’s accomplishing a big creative feat.
In general, I was impressed by the plot, the character depth, and the experimental writing style. I think that the mark of a good book is that it sits with you for a while, and I found myself really grappling with some of the book’s complex issues for weeks after reading it. So, screw my book club’s thorns; I give it 5 out of 5 flames.
