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Margo’s Got Money Troubles

On sale

4th July 2024

Price: £16.99

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Selected: Hardcover / ISBN-13: 9781399732505

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‘I read the first paragraph and was immediately hooked’
Jacqueline Wilson

‘Enormously entertaining and lovable’
Nick Hornby, New York Times

‘Nonjudgmental, original and very funny; the book is warm and generous too. I loved it’
India Knight, Sunday Times STYLE

** Big Little Lies creator David E. Kelley is to adapt for A24 – a TV show starring Nicole Kidman and Elle & Dakota Fanning **

Margo Millet’s got money troubles. As the child of a Hooter’s waitress and an ex-Pro-Wrestler, she’s always known she’d have to make it on her own. When she finds herself pregnant by her college professor – who is very keen not to be involved – she realizes she will need cash fast.

At twenty, alone with a baby, what Margo lacks in options she makes up for in ingenuity, and soon she has a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, producing content and writing storylines unlike anything else out there. Help arrives in the form of her live-action role-playing flatmate Suzie, and her father, Jinx – a recovering addict and veteran of the wrestling world, who has experience of making an audience fall in love.

Before she knows it, Margo is an online phenomenon. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

‘An expansive, offbeat, gorgeous exploration of resilience, forgiveness and multi-generational parenthood’
Pandora Sykes

‘A hilarious novel about making the most of what you’ve got’
Emma Straub, author of All Adults Here

Reviews

Ore Agbaje-Williams, author of <i>The Three of Us</i>
When I finished it, I couldn't quite believe it was over, that is how much I was completely rapt by Margo's Got Money Troubles. A brilliantly unique story, fallible and lovable characters and moments so human and hilarious that I laughed out loud multiple times. I can't quite believe this is only the first book I've read by Rufi Thorpe, because after reading her latest novel, it's clear that I need to go back and read everything she's ever written. She is a genius, after all.
Kevin Wilson, <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i>Nothing to See Here</i>
An audacious, wildly funny, completely unpredictable novel by a writer so singular that it's hard to compare her to anyone else . . . An absolutely brilliant book
Emma Straub, author of <i>All Adults Here</i>
A hilarious novel about making the most of what you've got. Sharp and funny by turns, this is an exceptionally tender look at young motherhood and love that also involves professional wrestling, and yes, OnlyFans. I gobbled it up.
Deesha Philyaw, author of <i>The Secret Lives of Church Ladies</i>
Long after the last page of Margo's Got Money Troubles, I think of certain lines and burst out laughing. In public. This novel is damn funny, but also touching and smart and surprising and beguiling and just completely bad ass. Rufi Thorpe is truly one of one!
Stephanie Danler, <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i>Sweetbitter</i>
Margo's Got Money Troubles is just so good: the humor, the pathos, the redemption - every sentence, every twist of plot is wildly original and unexpected. When has such a lovable heroine ever been created?
Kirstin Chen, <i>New York Times</i> bestselling author of <i>Counterfeit</i>
A thrilling, uproarious, and above all affirming exploration of one young woman's fight to make it in a world that's rooting against her. Margo is an unforgettable heroine, so real she walked right off the page and into my heart.
Leila Mottley, author of <i>Nightcrawling</i>
The most captivating narrative of motherhood, sex work, point of view, and regret. I'm obsessed!
Bookseller
Funny, surprising and gloriously kickass bildungsroman that lobs a hand grenade into the childcare and sex work debates, raising questions about how we judge one another . . . It illuminates the double binds in which women are caught, from abortion to childcare, and gives us a heroine whose imagination, courage and humour we can get behind. You'll finish the book wishing to be more Margo.
i
Wildly funny and perceptive . . . Margo's Got Money Troubles is about so much more than Margo or money, and yet is also very sharp-eyed about how central real money troubles are. I'll be thinking - and laughing - about it for a long time to come
Nick Hornby, New York Times Book Review
The warmth of Thorpe's tone, together with the thoroughness of her imagination and the artfulness of her pacing, means that skepticism is kept at bay. She sells us on both the characters and the plot . . . [in] this enormously entertaining and lovable book
Lauren Puckett-Pope, Best Books of Summer, Elle
Endearingly chaotic, this coming-of-age tale is certain to score a passionate fanbase
Arturo Vidich, Chicago Review of Books
Reading a Rufi Thorpe novel is like attending a masterclass on causality in fiction. Few authors write as deftly about navigating the systems that control our lives
Rob Merrill, Seattle Times
This is a wholly original novel . . . It's a book that grabs and keeps your attention. Who doesn't want to hear the end of a story that opens with a baby shower featuring a cake shaped like a big penis? Stuffed with laughs, it's also filled with sharp insights about celebrity, social media and what modern success even means . . . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end
Grazia, '12 Sizzling Reads'
When she can't afford the rent, single mum Margo turns to OnlyFans, with help from her ex-pro wrestler father, flatmate and a community of the platform's content creators. Funny and self-aware.
India Knight, Sunday Times STYLE
The premise is good and the execution even better - nonjudgmental, original and very funny; the book is warm and generous too. I loved it.
Dame Jacqueline Wilson, author of <i>Think Again</i>
I read the first paragraph and was immediately hooked. Rufi Thorpe writes about quirky characters on the edge of society with such style and compassion you feel they are your new best friends.