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Come and Get It
A fresh and provocative story about a residential assistant and her messy entanglement with a professor and three unruly students.
It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardised by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks and illicit intrigue.
A fresh and intimate portrait of desire, consumption and reckless abandon, Come and Get It is a tension-filled story about money, indiscretion, and bad behavior.
It's 2017 at the University of Arkansas. Millie Cousins, a senior resident assistant, wants to graduate, get a job, and buy a house. So when Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, offers Millie an easy yet unusual opportunity, she jumps at the chance. But Millie's starry-eyed hustle becomes jeopardised by odd new friends, vengeful dorm pranks and illicit intrigue.
A fresh and intimate portrait of desire, consumption and reckless abandon, Come and Get It is a tension-filled story about money, indiscretion, and bad behavior.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 30, 2024
About the author
Kiley Reid
7 books4,851 followersKiley Reid (born 1984) is an American novelist. She is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where she was the recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Such A Fun Age is her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 4,527 reviews
April 22, 2024
Finished this book and still not sure what the plot or point was.
June 11, 2023
58% in, and there is no discernible plot whatsoever - yes, you might say that this college novel is character driven, but what to make of this cast of 8 (!) main characters plus several minor figures? A lesbian professor / writer comes to a college in Arkansas to teach and work on her new book about weddings; she interviews students about the topic, three of them living in a more or less decrepit mini apartment in the Belgrade dorm; there, we also meet four RAs, one of them skipped senior year because her mother had glaucoma, but she is finally back to finish her studies. But wait, the students, who all have elaborate backstories that have no apparent connection to anything, play a harmless prank on their RAs, who also all have elaborate backstories with no apparent connection to anything! Will the RAs retaliate on Halloween? And will the professor, who, you guessed it, has an elaborate backstory with no apparent connection to anything, at some point play a relevant role for some kind of plot that might eventually unfold?
If you now say that this sounds like a jumbled, pointless mess, you are indeed correct. How could the publisher leave their author hanging like this, with a text in such desperate need of an editor who adds a level of narrative discipline? Jesus Christ.
If you now say that this sounds like a jumbled, pointless mess, you are indeed correct. How could the publisher leave their author hanging like this, with a text in such desperate need of an editor who adds a level of narrative discipline? Jesus Christ.
March 31, 2024
this book made me so anxious that when i read it before bed i had actual nightmares.
that's a compliment.
everyone in this book is such a bad person, and also not a bad person. literally nothing that anyone says is 100% true or fair. it's awesome. this is peak unreliable narrator book — it has about 100 characters and none of them can be trusted. you don't realize how often books have a voice of reason until you can engage in the chaos nightmare that is nobody doing so. how exhausting and stressful!
i know a lot of people didn't like kiley reid's first book, and that even more people didn't like this one, but i think that if you look at them as fun, unrealistic, pretty strange books with 1 or 2 interesting points to make at a cost of an odd writing style...
well, i think then they're a good time.
bottom line: the fun kind of unpopular opinion.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
------------------
tbr review
the most exciting nerve-wracking emotional experience in the world is waiting for an author's second release when you loved their debut.
that's a compliment.
everyone in this book is such a bad person, and also not a bad person. literally nothing that anyone says is 100% true or fair. it's awesome. this is peak unreliable narrator book — it has about 100 characters and none of them can be trusted. you don't realize how often books have a voice of reason until you can engage in the chaos nightmare that is nobody doing so. how exhausting and stressful!
i know a lot of people didn't like kiley reid's first book, and that even more people didn't like this one, but i think that if you look at them as fun, unrealistic, pretty strange books with 1 or 2 interesting points to make at a cost of an odd writing style...
well, i think then they're a good time.
bottom line: the fun kind of unpopular opinion.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
------------------
tbr review
the most exciting nerve-wracking emotional experience in the world is waiting for an author's second release when you loved their debut.
July 27, 2024
I could have tuned into a show about nothing, and I would have relished it because it was the vibrant nineties, and witnessing the daily escapades of intriguing characters in NYC was a rare and captivating experience for that era. Yes, I'm referring to Seinfeld.
This book, set three decades later, follows a similar concept. It stands as a prime example of character development with its meticulous, authentic portrayals that foster a connection between the reader and the main characters, Millie and Agatha. Both are formidable individuals striving to construct lives, prioritizing others' needs above their own. They are intelligent, resolute, and idealistic women of different ages (Millie: 24 years old, a college student and RA; Agatha: in her late thirties, a professor, journalist, and author).
While Millie cares for her mother, who is afflicted with glaucoma, by juggling various jobs, including managing at Barnes & Noble Cafe (not Starbucks) and a bed & breakfast, Agatha grapples with her relationship with a young, free-spirited dancer who marries her for insurance benefits. Agatha is a giver, focusing on peculiar, often vexing, and awkward aspects of life, and she explores diverse subjects for her latest novels.
Their paths intersect at the University of Arkansas, where Agatha visits as a guest professor to gather material for her new book on wedding traditions. This encounter opens up an opportunity for Millie that she can't resist. However, a tragic incident involving vengeful student pranks and illicit intrigue threatens to upend everything she has worked tirelessly for.
The narrative also introduces us to intriguing student profiles: Tyler, whose father is incarcerated and is determined to get a dog despite his mother's objections; Kennedy, a socially insecure girl with unique dorm decor (including a chandelier); Casey, a Southern belle; and Peyton, who spends more time in the kitchen than outside.
The book delves into significant dynamics between different socioeconomic classes, addresses racism, and includes LGBTQ representation. Notably, there's a wealth of information about being an RA, a role that entails substantial workload and responsibilities. It seems the author might have been an RA during her college years, which lends an air of authenticity to the portrayal.
Upon starting the book, I realized that not much of note unfolds within its pages. This pattern persists even as I progress through the latter half. The book could almost be likened to a college documentary or an unscripted reality series, as if the author has placed cameras inside dorm rooms to capture scenes from college life. While not tedious, it does become somewhat exasperating to read a book devoid of a discernible plotline. Curiously, the characters intrigued me enough to keep reading, holding onto the hope that something significant would transpire by the end. Regrettably, no such shift occurs.
For me, it remained an acceptable read, yet in comparison to "Such A Fun Age," I had anticipated more from the author. I've settled on a rating of three solid stars. I still look forward to delving into the author's future works, hoping to find a bit more enjoyment.
I extend my gratitude to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP PUTNAM / G. P. Putnam’s Sons for graciously providing me with a digital review copy in exchange for my candid thoughts.
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This book, set three decades later, follows a similar concept. It stands as a prime example of character development with its meticulous, authentic portrayals that foster a connection between the reader and the main characters, Millie and Agatha. Both are formidable individuals striving to construct lives, prioritizing others' needs above their own. They are intelligent, resolute, and idealistic women of different ages (Millie: 24 years old, a college student and RA; Agatha: in her late thirties, a professor, journalist, and author).
While Millie cares for her mother, who is afflicted with glaucoma, by juggling various jobs, including managing at Barnes & Noble Cafe (not Starbucks) and a bed & breakfast, Agatha grapples with her relationship with a young, free-spirited dancer who marries her for insurance benefits. Agatha is a giver, focusing on peculiar, often vexing, and awkward aspects of life, and she explores diverse subjects for her latest novels.
Their paths intersect at the University of Arkansas, where Agatha visits as a guest professor to gather material for her new book on wedding traditions. This encounter opens up an opportunity for Millie that she can't resist. However, a tragic incident involving vengeful student pranks and illicit intrigue threatens to upend everything she has worked tirelessly for.
The narrative also introduces us to intriguing student profiles: Tyler, whose father is incarcerated and is determined to get a dog despite his mother's objections; Kennedy, a socially insecure girl with unique dorm decor (including a chandelier); Casey, a Southern belle; and Peyton, who spends more time in the kitchen than outside.
The book delves into significant dynamics between different socioeconomic classes, addresses racism, and includes LGBTQ representation. Notably, there's a wealth of information about being an RA, a role that entails substantial workload and responsibilities. It seems the author might have been an RA during her college years, which lends an air of authenticity to the portrayal.
Upon starting the book, I realized that not much of note unfolds within its pages. This pattern persists even as I progress through the latter half. The book could almost be likened to a college documentary or an unscripted reality series, as if the author has placed cameras inside dorm rooms to capture scenes from college life. While not tedious, it does become somewhat exasperating to read a book devoid of a discernible plotline. Curiously, the characters intrigued me enough to keep reading, holding onto the hope that something significant would transpire by the end. Regrettably, no such shift occurs.
For me, it remained an acceptable read, yet in comparison to "Such A Fun Age," I had anticipated more from the author. I've settled on a rating of three solid stars. I still look forward to delving into the author's future works, hoping to find a bit more enjoyment.
I extend my gratitude to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP PUTNAM / G. P. Putnam’s Sons for graciously providing me with a digital review copy in exchange for my candid thoughts.
Follow me on medium.com to read my articles about books, movies, streaming series, astrology:
medium blog
April 27, 2023
QUICK TAKE: Kiley Reid definitely knows how to open a book. She follows up the fantastic SUCH A FUN AGE with another sharply-written coming-of-age story about a group of women living in and around a college campus and the micro- and macro-aggressions that inform their relationships and conflicts. Very character-driven, which I love.
January 15, 2024
Come & Get It is a book about power, money, privilege, ethics, and how race intersects with those. It's smart, but also dramatic and compulsively readable. It's one I think is really going to stick with me and I couldn't stop listening (thank you to Libro.FM for the audiobook!).
This multi-pov novel is set in 2017 at the University of Arkansas following a lesbian professor/ journalist ostensibly researching her next book, and the RA and three students who become entangled in a very messy web of relationships. I feel like it's a good idea to go into this without knowing too much, but I absolutely loved it. What does it mean to be ethical in academia? How do power, sexuality, and race intersect in complicated ways? Will the mistakes we make define us forever? Should they? And how do power and privilege allow people to get away with unethical behavior, leaving casualties in their wake? This novel is exploring those questions, but through the stories of well-developed characters who are extremely human and the kind of mundane details that create a strong sense of reality and of place. If you loved Such a Fun Age, Come and Get It will not disappoint as a sophomore followup to a blockbuster novel.
Update: oof the reviews on this are rough! I honestly just don't agree that this book was doing nothing and lacked a plot. It does meander into character backstories, but they all end up mattering. And I have known people like a lot of these characters, so I don't think they're unrealistic either. Reid is a professor herself and I'm married to one, so it 's entirely possible that people who don't live their lives in the academic world might find this less compelling. But I thought it was excellent and loved what she did here.
This multi-pov novel is set in 2017 at the University of Arkansas following a lesbian professor/ journalist ostensibly researching her next book, and the RA and three students who become entangled in a very messy web of relationships. I feel like it's a good idea to go into this without knowing too much, but I absolutely loved it. What does it mean to be ethical in academia? How do power, sexuality, and race intersect in complicated ways? Will the mistakes we make define us forever? Should they? And how do power and privilege allow people to get away with unethical behavior, leaving casualties in their wake? This novel is exploring those questions, but through the stories of well-developed characters who are extremely human and the kind of mundane details that create a strong sense of reality and of place. If you loved Such a Fun Age, Come and Get It will not disappoint as a sophomore followup to a blockbuster novel.
Update: oof the reviews on this are rough! I honestly just don't agree that this book was doing nothing and lacked a plot. It does meander into character backstories, but they all end up mattering. And I have known people like a lot of these characters, so I don't think they're unrealistic either. Reid is a professor herself and I'm married to one, so it 's entirely possible that people who don't live their lives in the academic world might find this less compelling. But I thought it was excellent and loved what she did here.
February 12, 2024
Reid’s latest novel is a disappointingly wishy-washy affair.
Disclaimer: The review below is negative and ranty. If you happen to have liked this novel or are looking forward to reading it I recommend you give my review a wide berth.
Reading Come and Get It was akin to waiting for a train that is delayed, so you sit there waiting and waiting, cycling between frustration, hope, and scepticism as the delayed time continues to increase. After hours, or what it feels like hours given your now woolly perception of time, an announcement informs you that your train has been cancelled.
This is a roundabout way to say that while reading Come and Get It I kept waiting, anticipating really, for something to happen. Sure, some of my favorite books are plotless, that is, rather meandering in nature. Take Elife Batuman's The Idiot, which like Come and Get It hones in on campus/college life. That book is exceedingly digressive and resists traditional narrative arcs (of conflict and resolution). Yet, I found the novel's sardonic tone and realistically absurd dialogues to be deeply entertaining. But the narrative of Come and Get It seems to operate under the belief that it is providing a story with more dramatic elements, suspense even. As we switch between the novel’s three central figures, I was waiting for the atmosphere of subtle yet present unease (established by that very first chapter and later on compounded by the various character dynamics), to actualize into something more substantial, but it never did! There are a couple of plot points that the characters treat as being pivotal, or as a source of drama, but were actually deeply anticlimactic. The narrative ascribes far too much weight to these two pranks, which were actually just cringe and superfluous. The characters remain one-note, and as with her debut, Reid focuses way too much time on giving page space to deliberately obnoxious and oblivious characters, and doing very little with the person who should have been the novel’s central character (whose characterization can be essentially boiled down to bland yet ‘nice’). The novel seems to promise something dramatic, but nothing ever does. Compared to authors like Brandon Taylor, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Danzy Senna, Reid’s social satire feels tame, and shallow. The novel lacks bite, as it fails to really sink its teeth in its (supposed) themes: from the interplay between race, class, and sexuality, to present us with an uncomfortable close-up of privilege, or to consider how it feels to be a young adult in late-capitalist America. Yet it seems under the assumption that it is this witty and razor-sharp ‘tell-all’ of college life. The novel suffers from a confused identity, it doesn’t know whether it wants to be a satire about an insufferable group of people (think the white lotus or bodies bodies bodies), or a more realistic and earnest portrayal of campus life and (young) adulthood. The novel’s undecided nature made me lose interest in what I was reading and I found myself wishing that the story would either commit to being a parody (a la libba bray's beauty queens) or take a more hyper-realistic approach to college novel (from batuman's aloof duology, to martin chelsea's understated tell me i'm an artist or taylor’s anxiety-inducing real life).
Throughout the novel, which takes place for the most part in the University of Arkansas in 2017-18 (why specify the year when said year bears little weight on the story?), we follow three characters, Millie, Agatha, and Kennedy, who don’t seem like they should belong to the same book. Kennedy was an incredibly derivative take of the 'dumb-blonde' characters like Glee's Brittany, Mean Girls's Karen, or Tiara from Bray's Beauty Queens. Her character would not be out of place in a novel by Moshfegh, Jen Beagin, or Mona Awad (but even then she would be ‘effective’ only as a cameo) or in a campy satirical comedy like Bottoms, Heathers, or Theater Camp…but here she feels out of place. Her ‘arc’, if we can call it that, is risible, as we are expected to care about her internal struggles when said struggles are worded in a way that makes them and her by extension appear idiotic. Her sections feature way too many flashbacks about her bond with her mum-cum-bff, same-y scenes about her wanting to make friends but not being able to, leaving crusty plates in the shared kitchen and feeling ‘attacked’ because her roommates aren’t keen on her industrial quantities of 'childish' stuff, and mentioning that she feels some type of way about Agatha’s book (her exact feelings towards this book are for the longest time never delved into and tbh the way she thinks this book ‘saved’ her felt like a reach given the way her character is depicted as being).
We have Agatha, a white lesbian visiting professor in her late 30s who comprises several ethical codes to listen in on the conversations between a trio of besties who spend their time in the college's residence hall. She finds their in-jokes and ways of expressing themselves compelling despite or maybe because they are incredibly vapid, materialistic, and unimaginatively problematic. She keeps going on and on about how interesting their attitude towards money is, yet beyond establishing how unaware of their own privilege these girls are, the narrative doesn’t reveal anything particularly insightful on this subject matter. And yet we are meant to believe that Agatha’s piece on them is a hit and that readers love it. I mean, in this day and age, when plenty of content where people ‘tell’ on themselves on social media…and the things these girls talk about are banal and unfunny. Ironically enough Agatha herself complains during a scene about "hat[ing] stories like this—Getting-There Stories. It was like someone talking about their dreams. They were only interesting to the person they'd happened to." Well, I can say the same about this trio's exchanges, as their banter and gossip did not interest me one bit. One of them, the trio's 'alpha', really wants a dog and thinks it's funny to pull puerile pranks with problematic undercurrents. They are a rather entitled and grating bunch, the caricature of what the collective imagination tends to think of American girls, but even if we accept them as caricatures, they just weren’t that fun. I’d rather watch a clip from an episode of The Simple Life, which is guaranteed to be appealing yet entertaining. Agatha's wonderment at the girls’ ‘modern’ lingo, is rather hard to digest given that she has not been living in a bubble (she interviewed people for her previous books and is a professor and therefore must have been in contact with other young people before coming across this trio). That chapter early on relationship with her ex had some sort of promise, as here Reid is able to give readers a convincing overview of their relationship. Their break-up felt realistic as Reid shows how their age and wage gap, as well as their different values and priorities, slowly begin to sour their domestic life. But then the rest of the chapters that focus on Agatha do not really provide any new insights into her psyche. Despite being aware of the murky morals of writing about a group of (much younger) people without their consent (not only does she exaggerate their flaws but she takes all sorts of liberties when recounting their histories and words), she keeps doing it because it’s just so damn fascinating (it's anything but) to hear these girls talk. Agatha's choices in the latter of the novel seemed unconvincing given that there was really nothing in her previous chapters that indicated that she would be the type of person to go ahead and do what she did. It also made me rather disappointed by the light in which her sexuality is cast…
We then have Millie, a 24-year-old Black student and RA who, similarly to Agatha, had a very promising chapter early on, as we learn about how she took time out of college to go back home so she could be close to her mum. I actually loved (yes loved) how the narrative describes their time together, and how their bond with each other is conveyed. It felt true-to-life and it promised a story with some emotional beats to it. But then Millie’s storyline ends up completely focusing on how she wants to buy a house (mais pourquoi ?!), and how compared to every other RA she doesn't/can't take this job lightly, and that she is a Nice Person. Nice she may be but give us something else to work with. I can relate to and believe in characters who are passive, especially in scenes of conflict or when dealing with microaggressions (like in win me something and luster), but Millie isn’t even particularly passive, she is just happens to be "there". Her chapters reveal little about who she is, and I found myself wanting for her chapters to reveal something more than her surface-level kindness. We are led to believe that she develops a crush on 2 characters (characters she has 0 chemistry with) combined with the ‘pranks’ (which again, were both pathetic and bathetic) and her quest for a house, see her adopting a more careless towards attitude towards her role as the residence hall's RA. The ‘consequences’ of this felt dramatic, in an unearned way. There was also something moralistic about her storyline which really didn’t sit well with me. Her being swept up by a romantic tryst and being mildly miffed by the people involved in the prank aimed at her, makes her what, stray from the Good Path…like really? She doesn’t even call out the person responsible for the prank, and yet the fact that she now gives the people involved in this prank a bit of a cold shoulder makes her irresponsible? Bad? Puhlease.
Side characters are thinly rendered stereotypes. Reid's older characters were far more convincing than her younger ones, whose words and behaviors ultimately come across as rather affected and cringey. Take Millie's side kicks for instance: the mean lesbian and the sassy gay.
As I kept waiting for a dramatic event or exchange to happen, I found myself growing increasingly annoyed by the novel. From the way the characters are portrayed to the flat dialogue. The prose also left something to be desired as it brought to mind authors whose writing I am on the fence about: Sally Rooney, Emily R. Austin, and Naoise Dolan. It sometimes really struck me as generic, impersonal, and unimaginative. We never delve deep into any one issue or theme, and the college setting felt really underutilized, a gimmick, as we don’t learn much about what any of the characters are studying or how they actually feel about their present and future.
final thoughts:
Come and Get It feels like a missed opportunity. It promises something but never delivers. The three main storylines do not mesh well together, the prose is flat, the characters are underdeveloped, and outside of those first introductory chapters, the narrative is monotonous. There were moments of humor that landed, such as: "Ryland, I'm kind of emotional," Millie said. "I have lots of emotional experiences in parking lots. I always have."
But these were outweighed by several scenes that are meant to be witty but didn't strike me as particularly clever or new. Reid's satire lacks oomph and her social commentary was neither provocative nor insightful. Even on a purely entertainment level, Come and Get It just did nothing for me. The novel never seems to find its footing, from the pacing to its tone.
I swear that wanted to like Come and Get It, and maybe I would have if Reid had structured her novel as a series of interlinked stories, like Taylor does in Filthy Animals. But at the end of the day Come and Get It was something in the realms of Rooney by way of Curtis Sittenfeld, so if you are a fan of either, you might find Reid's latest to be a much more rewarding reading experience than I did.
Disclaimer: The review below is negative and ranty. If you happen to have liked this novel or are looking forward to reading it I recommend you give my review a wide berth.
The feeling of being invested in their lives, it was thrilling and terrible.
Reading Come and Get It was akin to waiting for a train that is delayed, so you sit there waiting and waiting, cycling between frustration, hope, and scepticism as the delayed time continues to increase. After hours, or what it feels like hours given your now woolly perception of time, an announcement informs you that your train has been cancelled.
This is a roundabout way to say that while reading Come and Get It I kept waiting, anticipating really, for something to happen. Sure, some of my favorite books are plotless, that is, rather meandering in nature. Take Elife Batuman's The Idiot, which like Come and Get It hones in on campus/college life. That book is exceedingly digressive and resists traditional narrative arcs (of conflict and resolution). Yet, I found the novel's sardonic tone and realistically absurd dialogues to be deeply entertaining. But the narrative of Come and Get It seems to operate under the belief that it is providing a story with more dramatic elements, suspense even. As we switch between the novel’s three central figures, I was waiting for the atmosphere of subtle yet present unease (established by that very first chapter and later on compounded by the various character dynamics), to actualize into something more substantial, but it never did! There are a couple of plot points that the characters treat as being pivotal, or as a source of drama, but were actually deeply anticlimactic. The narrative ascribes far too much weight to these two pranks, which were actually just cringe and superfluous. The characters remain one-note, and as with her debut, Reid focuses way too much time on giving page space to deliberately obnoxious and oblivious characters, and doing very little with the person who should have been the novel’s central character (whose characterization can be essentially boiled down to bland yet ‘nice’). The novel seems to promise something dramatic, but nothing ever does. Compared to authors like Brandon Taylor, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Danzy Senna, Reid’s social satire feels tame, and shallow. The novel lacks bite, as it fails to really sink its teeth in its (supposed) themes: from the interplay between race, class, and sexuality, to present us with an uncomfortable close-up of privilege, or to consider how it feels to be a young adult in late-capitalist America. Yet it seems under the assumption that it is this witty and razor-sharp ‘tell-all’ of college life. The novel suffers from a confused identity, it doesn’t know whether it wants to be a satire about an insufferable group of people (think the white lotus or bodies bodies bodies), or a more realistic and earnest portrayal of campus life and (young) adulthood. The novel’s undecided nature made me lose interest in what I was reading and I found myself wishing that the story would either commit to being a parody (a la libba bray's beauty queens) or take a more hyper-realistic approach to college novel (from batuman's aloof duology, to martin chelsea's understated tell me i'm an artist or taylor’s anxiety-inducing real life).
Throughout the novel, which takes place for the most part in the University of Arkansas in 2017-18 (why specify the year when said year bears little weight on the story?), we follow three characters, Millie, Agatha, and Kennedy, who don’t seem like they should belong to the same book. Kennedy was an incredibly derivative take of the 'dumb-blonde' characters like Glee's Brittany, Mean Girls's Karen, or Tiara from Bray's Beauty Queens. Her character would not be out of place in a novel by Moshfegh, Jen Beagin, or Mona Awad (but even then she would be ‘effective’ only as a cameo) or in a campy satirical comedy like Bottoms, Heathers, or Theater Camp…but here she feels out of place. Her ‘arc’, if we can call it that, is risible, as we are expected to care about her internal struggles when said struggles are worded in a way that makes them and her by extension appear idiotic. Her sections feature way too many flashbacks about her bond with her mum-cum-bff, same-y scenes about her wanting to make friends but not being able to, leaving crusty plates in the shared kitchen and feeling ‘attacked’ because her roommates aren’t keen on her industrial quantities of 'childish' stuff, and mentioning that she feels some type of way about Agatha’s book (her exact feelings towards this book are for the longest time never delved into and tbh the way she thinks this book ‘saved’ her felt like a reach given the way her character is depicted as being).
We have Agatha, a white lesbian visiting professor in her late 30s who comprises several ethical codes to listen in on the conversations between a trio of besties who spend their time in the college's residence hall. She finds their in-jokes and ways of expressing themselves compelling despite or maybe because they are incredibly vapid, materialistic, and unimaginatively problematic. She keeps going on and on about how interesting their attitude towards money is, yet beyond establishing how unaware of their own privilege these girls are, the narrative doesn’t reveal anything particularly insightful on this subject matter. And yet we are meant to believe that Agatha’s piece on them is a hit and that readers love it. I mean, in this day and age, when plenty of content where people ‘tell’ on themselves on social media…and the things these girls talk about are banal and unfunny. Ironically enough Agatha herself complains during a scene about "hat[ing] stories like this—Getting-There Stories. It was like someone talking about their dreams. They were only interesting to the person they'd happened to." Well, I can say the same about this trio's exchanges, as their banter and gossip did not interest me one bit. One of them, the trio's 'alpha', really wants a dog and thinks it's funny to pull puerile pranks with problematic undercurrents. They are a rather entitled and grating bunch, the caricature of what the collective imagination tends to think of American girls, but even if we accept them as caricatures, they just weren’t that fun. I’d rather watch a clip from an episode of The Simple Life, which is guaranteed to be appealing yet entertaining. Agatha's wonderment at the girls’ ‘modern’ lingo, is rather hard to digest given that she has not been living in a bubble (she interviewed people for her previous books and is a professor and therefore must have been in contact with other young people before coming across this trio). That chapter early on relationship with her ex had some sort of promise, as here Reid is able to give readers a convincing overview of their relationship. Their break-up felt realistic as Reid shows how their age and wage gap, as well as their different values and priorities, slowly begin to sour their domestic life. But then the rest of the chapters that focus on Agatha do not really provide any new insights into her psyche. Despite being aware of the murky morals of writing about a group of (much younger) people without their consent (not only does she exaggerate their flaws but she takes all sorts of liberties when recounting their histories and words), she keeps doing it because it’s just so damn fascinating (it's anything but) to hear these girls talk. Agatha's choices in the latter of the novel seemed unconvincing given that there was really nothing in her previous chapters that indicated that she would be the type of person to go ahead and do what she did. It also made me rather disappointed by the light in which her sexuality is cast…
We then have Millie, a 24-year-old Black student and RA who, similarly to Agatha, had a very promising chapter early on, as we learn about how she took time out of college to go back home so she could be close to her mum. I actually loved (yes loved) how the narrative describes their time together, and how their bond with each other is conveyed. It felt true-to-life and it promised a story with some emotional beats to it. But then Millie’s storyline ends up completely focusing on how she wants to buy a house (mais pourquoi ?!), and how compared to every other RA she doesn't/can't take this job lightly, and that she is a Nice Person. Nice she may be but give us something else to work with. I can relate to and believe in characters who are passive, especially in scenes of conflict or when dealing with microaggressions (like in win me something and luster), but Millie isn’t even particularly passive, she is just happens to be "there". Her chapters reveal little about who she is, and I found myself wanting for her chapters to reveal something more than her surface-level kindness. We are led to believe that she develops a crush on 2 characters (characters she has 0 chemistry with) combined with the ‘pranks’ (which again, were both pathetic and bathetic) and her quest for a house, see her adopting a more careless towards attitude towards her role as the residence hall's RA. The ‘consequences’ of this felt dramatic, in an unearned way. There was also something moralistic about her storyline which really didn’t sit well with me. Her being swept up by a romantic tryst and being mildly miffed by the people involved in the prank aimed at her, makes her what, stray from the Good Path…like really? She doesn’t even call out the person responsible for the prank, and yet the fact that she now gives the people involved in this prank a bit of a cold shoulder makes her irresponsible? Bad? Puhlease.
Side characters are thinly rendered stereotypes. Reid's older characters were far more convincing than her younger ones, whose words and behaviors ultimately come across as rather affected and cringey. Take Millie's side kicks for instance: the mean lesbian and the sassy gay.
As I kept waiting for a dramatic event or exchange to happen, I found myself growing increasingly annoyed by the novel. From the way the characters are portrayed to the flat dialogue. The prose also left something to be desired as it brought to mind authors whose writing I am on the fence about: Sally Rooney, Emily R. Austin, and Naoise Dolan. It sometimes really struck me as generic, impersonal, and unimaginative. We never delve deep into any one issue or theme, and the college setting felt really underutilized, a gimmick, as we don’t learn much about what any of the characters are studying or how they actually feel about their present and future.
final thoughts:
Come and Get It feels like a missed opportunity. It promises something but never delivers. The three main storylines do not mesh well together, the prose is flat, the characters are underdeveloped, and outside of those first introductory chapters, the narrative is monotonous. There were moments of humor that landed, such as: "Ryland, I'm kind of emotional," Millie said. "I have lots of emotional experiences in parking lots. I always have."
But these were outweighed by several scenes that are meant to be witty but didn't strike me as particularly clever or new. Reid's satire lacks oomph and her social commentary was neither provocative nor insightful. Even on a purely entertainment level, Come and Get It just did nothing for me. The novel never seems to find its footing, from the pacing to its tone.
I swear that wanted to like Come and Get It, and maybe I would have if Reid had structured her novel as a series of interlinked stories, like Taylor does in Filthy Animals. But at the end of the day Come and Get It was something in the realms of Rooney by way of Curtis Sittenfeld, so if you are a fan of either, you might find Reid's latest to be a much more rewarding reading experience than I did.
February 11, 2024
I liked this one a lot. Kiley Reid is giving a character study with all the details you could ever need. This is social commentary and a good ass time.
January 8, 2024
This novel should be marketed as Young Adult. As a mature adult (a/k/a senior citizen), I found nothing interesting in reading about dormitory residents at the University of Arkansas. Topics of conversation include Halloween decorations, dirty dishes, what they eat for breakfast, and balayage hair. Only one of the students was nice enough to care about, but even she is motivated by money. A visiting professor takes advantage of some of the co-eds in a cringe-worthy manner. I had to force myself to finish it.
Thank you to the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion.
Thank you to the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest opinion.
December 10, 2023
Reid's debut made me so anxious I could barely read it. She's still an astute observer of all the little barbs people fling at each other, especially those masked under a veneer of manners, but thankfully for me her second novel is going to give us a little time to breathe before she destroys us.
Early reviews I've seen have lots of "nothing happens in this book" which is a real misread. Everything is happening pretty much all along, it's just that they are the small slights and alliances that will end up meaning a lot later on. If you cannot recognize all the little actions of these characters as steps that will lead them towards an eventual path where everything goes all out to hell then Kiley Reid is probably not the right author for you.
It does eventually get to pretty intense levels of Oh No. Lots of me saying out loud to the characters, "You are making bad decisions, this is not going to end well." Waiting for the train to crash is part of what's enjoyable, and waiting to see just how it's all going to blow up and how deeply these characters will be intertwined along the way is the real pleasure.
I enjoyed this book so much, truly. There is so much confidence in the way Reid writes about people, so much specificity and so much that you recognize. There is also an ease to it, her books are not fussy and they are not going for points with the prose style. That's not really her intention. It's that perceptiveness, that accuracy, the thrill of recognition, the shock of eventual outrage. I have had a lot of trouble finding pleasure in books recently but I truly found pleasure here.
Early reviews I've seen have lots of "nothing happens in this book" which is a real misread. Everything is happening pretty much all along, it's just that they are the small slights and alliances that will end up meaning a lot later on. If you cannot recognize all the little actions of these characters as steps that will lead them towards an eventual path where everything goes all out to hell then Kiley Reid is probably not the right author for you.
It does eventually get to pretty intense levels of Oh No. Lots of me saying out loud to the characters, "You are making bad decisions, this is not going to end well." Waiting for the train to crash is part of what's enjoyable, and waiting to see just how it's all going to blow up and how deeply these characters will be intertwined along the way is the real pleasure.
I enjoyed this book so much, truly. There is so much confidence in the way Reid writes about people, so much specificity and so much that you recognize. There is also an ease to it, her books are not fussy and they are not going for points with the prose style. That's not really her intention. It's that perceptiveness, that accuracy, the thrill of recognition, the shock of eventual outrage. I have had a lot of trouble finding pleasure in books recently but I truly found pleasure here.
February 13, 2024
I loved the authors first book, Such a Fine Age. It was social satire at its best.
This has everything I should have loved in a character driven novel. But I didn’t love it. To be fair, it’s difficult to make a book featuring a group of college girls and their banal conversations interesting. Fortunately, the excellent writing and the audiobook narrator kept me awake.
This was supposed to be (I think?) about money: who has it and who doesn’t and how this affects their attitudes. Race, power imbalance, sexuality and journalistic ethics come into play. So much potential. But the plot meanders along, tensions build slowly, (too slowly) and the climactic scene fell completely flat. Was the pizza cutter scene supposed to be absurd and funny? I don’t think so but I found it eye-rolling.
I love Reid’s writing but I just couldn’t muster enough interest to care about what happened to any of these characters.
* I received a review copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own
This has everything I should have loved in a character driven novel. But I didn’t love it. To be fair, it’s difficult to make a book featuring a group of college girls and their banal conversations interesting. Fortunately, the excellent writing and the audiobook narrator kept me awake.
This was supposed to be (I think?) about money: who has it and who doesn’t and how this affects their attitudes. Race, power imbalance, sexuality and journalistic ethics come into play. So much potential. But the plot meanders along, tensions build slowly, (too slowly) and the climactic scene fell completely flat. Was the pizza cutter scene supposed to be absurd and funny? I don’t think so but I found it eye-rolling.
I love Reid’s writing but I just couldn’t muster enough interest to care about what happened to any of these characters.
* I received a review copy via NetGalley. All opinions are my own
November 27, 2023
It’s 2017, and Millie Cousins is a resident assistant at Belgrade Dormitory at the University of Arkansas. She’s a hard worker and ambitious, wanting to raise as much money as she can in order to buy a house. So when visiting Professor and author, Agatha Paul makes her an unusual offer, she jumps at the chance. However, will her willingness to make a few extra bucks backfire? Initially all seems okay, but the behaviour of four students, Tyler, Peyton, Casey and Kennedy could jeopardise all.
OK, let’s start with what is done very well in this novel. First of all, Kiley Reid is very incisive and perceptive on character development as all are well crafted, though not necessarily likeable apart from Millie. Despite the fact that she does not get things right, she’s driven, has admirable goals and her intentions are good. Agatha’s portrayal is also good though it’s hard not to feel annoyed at the boundaries that she oversteps. The students are crafted with clarity and in a few deft strokes you see them for exactly what they are which is not at all likeable though I feel for Kennedy as she’s so insecure. The unequal dynamics between them are also very good as they are between Millie and the students and Millie and Agatha. College life, especially in Belgrade Dormitory, is also done well and makes me glad that’s all behind me! The dialogue feels authentic and there are often so many layers in sentences that statements that on the surface seem innocuous have way more depth to them. The novel covers some interesting themes such as racism, sexuality, LGBTQIA issues and class. Right from the start the differences in socioeconomic groups is very apparent and some things the students claim are jokes so aren’t.
However, despite the above this character driven novel is very slow, there’s not a great deal in terms of plot as it’s principally about the characters interacting and as some of them are so unlikeable it’s hard to care very much about them. The storyline is pretty much the same throughout so it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the interest going. The bottom line is that not a lot happens apart from some student jinx until the end where things do go pear shaped. It feels very YA to me which I guess is inevitable when the focus is on students.
Overall, it’s a mixed bag read for me.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Bloomsbury for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
OK, let’s start with what is done very well in this novel. First of all, Kiley Reid is very incisive and perceptive on character development as all are well crafted, though not necessarily likeable apart from Millie. Despite the fact that she does not get things right, she’s driven, has admirable goals and her intentions are good. Agatha’s portrayal is also good though it’s hard not to feel annoyed at the boundaries that she oversteps. The students are crafted with clarity and in a few deft strokes you see them for exactly what they are which is not at all likeable though I feel for Kennedy as she’s so insecure. The unequal dynamics between them are also very good as they are between Millie and the students and Millie and Agatha. College life, especially in Belgrade Dormitory, is also done well and makes me glad that’s all behind me! The dialogue feels authentic and there are often so many layers in sentences that statements that on the surface seem innocuous have way more depth to them. The novel covers some interesting themes such as racism, sexuality, LGBTQIA issues and class. Right from the start the differences in socioeconomic groups is very apparent and some things the students claim are jokes so aren’t.
However, despite the above this character driven novel is very slow, there’s not a great deal in terms of plot as it’s principally about the characters interacting and as some of them are so unlikeable it’s hard to care very much about them. The storyline is pretty much the same throughout so it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the interest going. The bottom line is that not a lot happens apart from some student jinx until the end where things do go pear shaped. It feels very YA to me which I guess is inevitable when the focus is on students.
Overall, it’s a mixed bag read for me.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Bloomsbury for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
February 21, 2024
"Come and Get It" is another treasure from Kiley Reid, a novel that begins with hilarity and ends with heartbreak -- but it is heartbreak with resilience. Reid has a brilliant ear for dialogue and how people REALLY speak, and is one of the most astute observers we have of social mores. In this one, the kids are not all right. Not at all. Neither are the grownups who are supposed to care for them. It's been a long time since I was in college, but everything about this remarkable novel felt spot-on. I loved it.
January 24, 2024
Twenty years ago, Tom Wolfe created a bright naif named Charlotte Simmons and followed her to college, where they both discovered that students were having sex. In sweaty prose straining with Wolfeian flourishes, the libidinous mechanics of “I Am Charlotte Simmons” read like the soft-porn edition of a physics textbook. The novel was presented as a sociological exposé, but non-climactic aspects of college life were largely eclipsed. After finishing it, I had to wear corrective glasses for several weeks to recover from excessive eye-rolling.
Kiley Reid, the author of the 2019 hit “Such a Fun Age,” is not so enamored with or shocked by the lusty antics of college kids. Perhaps because she’s younger or maybe because she observes more closely, she seems to know that the lives of young women are complicated in all kinds of messy ways that have nothing to do with what’s happening — or not happening — between the sheets.
Reid’s smart new novel, “Come and Get It,” takes place in 2017 in a dorm at the University of Arkansas. At the opening, we meet a visiting professor named Agatha Paul who writes about how people conduct family events such as funerals and birthdays. She’s come to the dorm to ask three female students questions for her new work of cultural criticism on weddings.
“There are no right answers,” Agatha assures the nervous students. “You’re all big wedding fans, yes?”
“That’s like, all we do,” says Jenna, a 19-year-old exercise science major from Waco, Tex. “We just like....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
Kiley Reid, the author of the 2019 hit “Such a Fun Age,” is not so enamored with or shocked by the lusty antics of college kids. Perhaps because she’s younger or maybe because she observes more closely, she seems to know that the lives of young women are complicated in all kinds of messy ways that have nothing to do with what’s happening — or not happening — between the sheets.
Reid’s smart new novel, “Come and Get It,” takes place in 2017 in a dorm at the University of Arkansas. At the opening, we meet a visiting professor named Agatha Paul who writes about how people conduct family events such as funerals and birthdays. She’s come to the dorm to ask three female students questions for her new work of cultural criticism on weddings.
“There are no right answers,” Agatha assures the nervous students. “You’re all big wedding fans, yes?”
“That’s like, all we do,” says Jenna, a 19-year-old exercise science major from Waco, Tex. “We just like....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
May 18, 2024
"Come and Get It," set in 2017 at the University of Arkansas, centers on Millie, a senior resident assistant, who becomes embroiled in an inappropriate relationship with a visiting professor, Agatha Paul, while managing several students under her care.
I enjoyed Kiley Reid’s writing by the way she had her well-drawn characters express their thoughts and interactions from each of their povs throughout the novel. She also effectively used the various settings and incorporated themes of race, class, and morality in a way that provoked inward contemplation for me, the reader, as well. Despite this, the pacing is a bit uneven, with buildups leading to anti-climactic events.
The narrative seems designed to be a deep character study rather than a plot-driven tale. While I’m all for those types of stories, I never became positively invested in any of the characters. Agatha’s research exploring consumerism, money, and the complexities of human behavior among the students initially held my interest, but never really felt filled out. Her character gave me major ick btw.
Overall, it's a compelling read but not one that will likely stand out as a favorite for me this year.
Thanks to Netgalley, PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, and Kiley Reid for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
I enjoyed Kiley Reid’s writing by the way she had her well-drawn characters express their thoughts and interactions from each of their povs throughout the novel. She also effectively used the various settings and incorporated themes of race, class, and morality in a way that provoked inward contemplation for me, the reader, as well. Despite this, the pacing is a bit uneven, with buildups leading to anti-climactic events.
The narrative seems designed to be a deep character study rather than a plot-driven tale. While I’m all for those types of stories, I never became positively invested in any of the characters. Agatha’s research exploring consumerism, money, and the complexities of human behavior among the students initially held my interest, but never really felt filled out. Her character gave me major ick btw.
Overall, it's a compelling read but not one that will likely stand out as a favorite for me this year.
Thanks to Netgalley, PENGUIN GROUP Putnam, and Kiley Reid for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
December 19, 2023
one thing about me is that i love character-driven stories. most of my reading in recent years are character driven books because i love the depth and detail and intricacies the author puts in. which is why i hate to say that this book didn't do it for me because of how plotless it was. and for a character driven book, i felt that so many of the characters were one dimensional and difficult to imagine as real people. i really wish i loved this because i was so excited for it!!
thank you putnam for the arc!!!
⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻
pre-read
I GOT THE ARC!!!!!!
thank you putnam for the arc!!!
⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻
pre-read
I GOT THE ARC!!!!!!
July 27, 2024
In classic Kiley Reid fashion, this book was both laugh-out-loud hilarious and painfully heart-wrenching. It’s told from the perspective of three women going through periods of change. Agatha is a writer and professor fresh off a breakup with her long-term partner. Millie is a resident assistant who’s back at school after a year off to help her mother through a health issue. Kennedy is a student starting fresh at a new university after experiencing tragedy at her last one. These characters were relatable, complex and not entirely likeable. I enjoyed this a lot!
April 16, 2024
Loved such a fun age and I’m a big Kiley Reid fan, however, I think this book was just trying to do too much. Having said that, I’ll definitely read any upcoming Reid novels.
June 3, 2023
Thank you to the publisher for an early copy from Netgalley for review. All thoughts & opinions are my own.
In the follow-up to her wildly successful debut Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid once again looks at class and race in an off-beat way. This time she dives into the collegiate world following a professor, a dorm RA, and one of her residents at a small southern college.
Agatha is an author and professor who moves to Arkansas for a new teaching position. In her first weeks there, she connects with Millie, an RA of the Belgrade dormitory, to see if she might be able to interview some of her residents about weddings for her next book. However, what Agatha finds in these young women is more than she intended and her focus soon shifts to some questionable practices as she learns more about their worldview and how she may or may not exploit it for her gain. Kennedy, another resident of Millie, meanwhile is struggling to connect with her roommates having transferred to the school in her junior year. As the novel goes on, these 3 main storylines begin to intertwine and result in one climactic moment that will leave everyone affected for life.
What I liked:
Kiley Reid is funny. She clearly has an eye for the hidden layers of people, and she does a great job at exposing them in a way that makes you cringe but laugh simultaneously. It's a train-wreck you can't look away from, and the book is very readable for that. I think the exploration of money, particularly, in this book was interesting. I wish it had gone a bit further and made more connections, however there is a lot to discuss in terms of money as power, especially through the lens of race, that would make this a good book for book clubs (which I'm sure it will be when it comes out in 2024).
What I didn't like as much:
There is almost no plot to this book for about 80% of the story. It's a character driven story that hints at something coming, but it takes so long to get there that when it finally does it left me with a, "That's it?" feeling. I'll also say, while Reid is funny, this book felt even more like a parody or satire than her first novel, in a way that I just didn't enjoy as much. It kept me from feeling like the characters were realistic, believable people with motivations I could understand, even if I disagreed with them. Early on we get a decently long chapter about Agatha that explained her backstory in a way that had me excited to keep seeing more about her, but that felt like all the groundwork Reid laid to try and 'explain' who she was, and it just didn't feel like enough. Same thing with Kennedy: her backstory was delivered so late in the book and felt almost laughable instead of sympathetic because of how it was delivered that it took away some of the power the climax of this story for me. There were also just some strange descriptions or choices of language that felt awkward to me, but this is an early uncorrected proof copy so there's potential that will change (not typos just stylistic choices I felt were stilted).
Ultimately, I feel like the pieces were all there in this book. I could see what Reid was trying to say and do with the story, but the execution left a lot to be desired. Perhaps if we had focused only on one or two of the 3 main characters, or eliminated some of the side characters that distracted from the core of the story, I would have felt more connected to what was happening and understood why things occurred how they did more. I wanted to love this because her debut novel was so fun and thought-provoking, but this one felt a bit cheesy and over-the-top in a way that I didn't enjoy. I think others will like it, and maybe some of the kinks of the writing and characters will be worked out before it's published, resolving some of my issues with the technical aspects.
In the follow-up to her wildly successful debut Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid once again looks at class and race in an off-beat way. This time she dives into the collegiate world following a professor, a dorm RA, and one of her residents at a small southern college.
Agatha is an author and professor who moves to Arkansas for a new teaching position. In her first weeks there, she connects with Millie, an RA of the Belgrade dormitory, to see if she might be able to interview some of her residents about weddings for her next book. However, what Agatha finds in these young women is more than she intended and her focus soon shifts to some questionable practices as she learns more about their worldview and how she may or may not exploit it for her gain. Kennedy, another resident of Millie, meanwhile is struggling to connect with her roommates having transferred to the school in her junior year. As the novel goes on, these 3 main storylines begin to intertwine and result in one climactic moment that will leave everyone affected for life.
What I liked:
Kiley Reid is funny. She clearly has an eye for the hidden layers of people, and she does a great job at exposing them in a way that makes you cringe but laugh simultaneously. It's a train-wreck you can't look away from, and the book is very readable for that. I think the exploration of money, particularly, in this book was interesting. I wish it had gone a bit further and made more connections, however there is a lot to discuss in terms of money as power, especially through the lens of race, that would make this a good book for book clubs (which I'm sure it will be when it comes out in 2024).
What I didn't like as much:
There is almost no plot to this book for about 80% of the story. It's a character driven story that hints at something coming, but it takes so long to get there that when it finally does it left me with a, "That's it?" feeling. I'll also say, while Reid is funny, this book felt even more like a parody or satire than her first novel, in a way that I just didn't enjoy as much. It kept me from feeling like the characters were realistic, believable people with motivations I could understand, even if I disagreed with them. Early on we get a decently long chapter about Agatha that explained her backstory in a way that had me excited to keep seeing more about her, but that felt like all the groundwork Reid laid to try and 'explain' who she was, and it just didn't feel like enough. Same thing with Kennedy: her backstory was delivered so late in the book and felt almost laughable instead of sympathetic because of how it was delivered that it took away some of the power the climax of this story for me. There were also just some strange descriptions or choices of language that felt awkward to me, but this is an early uncorrected proof copy so there's potential that will change (not typos just stylistic choices I felt were stilted).
Ultimately, I feel like the pieces were all there in this book. I could see what Reid was trying to say and do with the story, but the execution left a lot to be desired. Perhaps if we had focused only on one or two of the 3 main characters, or eliminated some of the side characters that distracted from the core of the story, I would have felt more connected to what was happening and understood why things occurred how they did more. I wanted to love this because her debut novel was so fun and thought-provoking, but this one felt a bit cheesy and over-the-top in a way that I didn't enjoy. I think others will like it, and maybe some of the kinks of the writing and characters will be worked out before it's published, resolving some of my issues with the technical aspects.
September 3, 2023
This book is for the girls that get it, truth be told... I'm not sure I do? Normally I might think that this is a bad thing... like the book set out to do something and it failed to accomplish that. Here... I'm not sure that it set out to do something, nor did it really fail, an the experience that I had in all of that was overwhelmingly positive, but having finished the book and slept on how the story played out so much of what happened feels as though it has dissipated. In some ways adjacent to cotton candy, but definitely more thought provoking.
The book is set at the University of Arkansas and we follow five women as their lives converge on the campus in various ways. We have Agatha Paul a new professor and celebrated author, Millie Cousins the RA at the least attractive dorm on the campus; and Kennedy, Tyler, and Jenna three girls who live in the dorm that no one wants to be in. The way the novel brings these women together, and the exploration of their lives is interesting. It's not quite slice of life there's a little something happening. If anything book toes the line of commentary, all of the pieces are present for that to happen but then it's mostly left on the reader? Not a bad choice, one that I think works at most points in the novel.
For the most part I think the book tells you where it's going to go. Agatha is here to teach yes, but is also working on another book and so the direction her writing is going does dictate the direction that the book overall goes in; with the other characters serving as the muses essentially. Even with a generalized idea of how the book was going to play out after the first twenty or so percent, Reid still managed to keep me invested. Up until the end, which felt very abrupt? A lot of that has to do with how the characters behaved overall, and the way that the story itself unfolded. It realliy did feel like there were missed opportunities.
Overall though the reading experience was really positive. I spent a lot of time highlighting passages of the text and feeling really connected to hose these characters were interacting with one another. If anything I think the book being just a little longer might have helped. As someone that really enjoyed their debut I didn't feel let down by this at all, and I do look forward to purchasing a copy for myself when the book comes out in January. I do have a hard time knowing how else would enjoy this though, as recommending this feels slightly harder than knowing who to suggest their debut to.
The book is set at the University of Arkansas and we follow five women as their lives converge on the campus in various ways. We have Agatha Paul a new professor and celebrated author, Millie Cousins the RA at the least attractive dorm on the campus; and Kennedy, Tyler, and Jenna three girls who live in the dorm that no one wants to be in. The way the novel brings these women together, and the exploration of their lives is interesting. It's not quite slice of life there's a little something happening. If anything book toes the line of commentary, all of the pieces are present for that to happen but then it's mostly left on the reader? Not a bad choice, one that I think works at most points in the novel.
For the most part I think the book tells you where it's going to go. Agatha is here to teach yes, but is also working on another book and so the direction her writing is going does dictate the direction that the book overall goes in; with the other characters serving as the muses essentially. Even with a generalized idea of how the book was going to play out after the first twenty or so percent, Reid still managed to keep me invested. Up until the end, which felt very abrupt? A lot of that has to do with how the characters behaved overall, and the way that the story itself unfolded. It realliy did feel like there were missed opportunities.
Overall though the reading experience was really positive. I spent a lot of time highlighting passages of the text and feeling really connected to hose these characters were interacting with one another. If anything I think the book being just a little longer might have helped. As someone that really enjoyed their debut I didn't feel let down by this at all, and I do look forward to purchasing a copy for myself when the book comes out in January. I do have a hard time knowing how else would enjoy this though, as recommending this feels slightly harder than knowing who to suggest their debut to.
January 10, 2024
Come and Get It, the much anticipated sophomore novel from author Kiley Reid, was a colossal disappointment. I held off reviewing this book for a few days in the hope that I might be able to reflect on it more positively than in the immediate aftermath, but unfortunately not.
My disappointment is probably amplified because of my love for Reid's debut novel Such a Fun Age, it was one of my favourite books of 2020 - an incisive take on race, white privilege and classism that struck a chord with many readers. Come and Get It, set in the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, attempts to do the same thing with the subject of money and class but fails to hit the same high notes, meandering to a largely plotless conclusion and bloated with repetitive, inane dialogue and characters that were mostly bland and uninteresting.
The novel focuses on a few female characters - Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer who is conducting some research on weddings (a bizarre and implausible premise when you read it tbh), Millie, an RA (resident assistant) in Belgrade dorm who is hoping to graduate, find a job and buy a house, and a group of students, Casey, Tyler, Kennedy, Peyton and Jenna, some of whom play a bigger role than others. The book is mostly the ins and outs of dorm life, down to the mundanity of dish-washing.
The book has one redeeming chapter - the one where we get Kennedy's backstory and the reason she is the way she is (a consumerist loner with poor hygiene). The writing is sharp and striking here, and it is hard not to feel sorry for Kennedy. It struck me that the chapter in question would have made a good short story, and perhaps began life as a short story that a novel was built around (pure speculation on my part)? I wish the book had been more cohesive, more interesting, better edited and plotted. I will absolutely read what Kiley Reid writes next - this isn't the review I had hoped to write. Boring, vapid, pointless. 1.5/5 stars
*Many thanks to @bloomsburypublishing for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book. Come and Get It will be published in January 2024. As always, this is an honest review.
My disappointment is probably amplified because of my love for Reid's debut novel Such a Fun Age, it was one of my favourite books of 2020 - an incisive take on race, white privilege and classism that struck a chord with many readers. Come and Get It, set in the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, attempts to do the same thing with the subject of money and class but fails to hit the same high notes, meandering to a largely plotless conclusion and bloated with repetitive, inane dialogue and characters that were mostly bland and uninteresting.
The novel focuses on a few female characters - Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer who is conducting some research on weddings (a bizarre and implausible premise when you read it tbh), Millie, an RA (resident assistant) in Belgrade dorm who is hoping to graduate, find a job and buy a house, and a group of students, Casey, Tyler, Kennedy, Peyton and Jenna, some of whom play a bigger role than others. The book is mostly the ins and outs of dorm life, down to the mundanity of dish-washing.
The book has one redeeming chapter - the one where we get Kennedy's backstory and the reason she is the way she is (a consumerist loner with poor hygiene). The writing is sharp and striking here, and it is hard not to feel sorry for Kennedy. It struck me that the chapter in question would have made a good short story, and perhaps began life as a short story that a novel was built around (pure speculation on my part)? I wish the book had been more cohesive, more interesting, better edited and plotted. I will absolutely read what Kiley Reid writes next - this isn't the review I had hoped to write. Boring, vapid, pointless. 1.5/5 stars
*Many thanks to @bloomsburypublishing for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book. Come and Get It will be published in January 2024. As always, this is an honest review.
March 22, 2024
2.75 stars
I have such CONFLICTED feelings about this one. I absolutely adored Such a Fun Age and so I was so excited to pick this one up. I do feel like Kiley Reid is a strong writer. She creates interesting characters and I could feel the tension building as I read this book. But in the end, I found that the plot really meandered and led to a lot of nothing. It was pretty deflating for me in the end.
Watch my full review here: https://youtu.be/YH95jQDjsrE
I have such CONFLICTED feelings about this one. I absolutely adored Such a Fun Age and so I was so excited to pick this one up. I do feel like Kiley Reid is a strong writer. She creates interesting characters and I could feel the tension building as I read this book. But in the end, I found that the plot really meandered and led to a lot of nothing. It was pretty deflating for me in the end.
Watch my full review here: https://youtu.be/YH95jQDjsrE
May 27, 2023
This was an excellent character study and I haven’t been this enthralled with dorm living since Curtis Sittenfeld’s ”Prep.” The characters were so believable — reckless yet lovely, nice but mean, confident and immature. As someone who has been 19, 24, 30 and 38, I saw myself in each of the narratives. Would highly recommend, especially if you devour the Refinery’s money diaries. The specificity of every setting and situation was *chefs kiss*.
Also, this is not a thriller, but I was on the edge of my seat just waiting for the inevitable train to crash.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the arc! Will recommend and preorder my little heart out.
Also, this is not a thriller, but I was on the edge of my seat just waiting for the inevitable train to crash.
Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the arc! Will recommend and preorder my little heart out.
February 5, 2024
Come And Get It is set in 2017 at The University of Arkansas and follows Millie, an RA, a handful of her charges in the transfer dorm where she lives and works, other RAs and university personnel, and Agatha, a visiting professor and writer. Their lives intersect in ordinary and unexpected ways, as each person tries to adjust to their current stage in life and their living environment. When Millie is offered an easy and unique opportunity by Agatha, she can’t resist, thinking about her own future and potential gains.
I didn’t always like the characters but as a whole, I was rooting for Millie. I could also understand the dorm residents’ desire to be socially accepted by others. There were multiple instances of side conversations or dialogue that I thought didn’t further the story, but it still felt fitting of the time and place for a college dorm.
I couldn’t stop reading Come and Get It, intrigued yet remaining unsure where the story was headed for the majority of the book. Money, impulsive behavior, class, and race are themes in this character driven story that’s uncomfortable but hard to look away from.
Thank you to Netgalley and Putnam Books for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
I didn’t always like the characters but as a whole, I was rooting for Millie. I could also understand the dorm residents’ desire to be socially accepted by others. There were multiple instances of side conversations or dialogue that I thought didn’t further the story, but it still felt fitting of the time and place for a college dorm.
I couldn’t stop reading Come and Get It, intrigued yet remaining unsure where the story was headed for the majority of the book. Money, impulsive behavior, class, and race are themes in this character driven story that’s uncomfortable but hard to look away from.
Thank you to Netgalley and Putnam Books for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
January 27, 2024
the audiobook narrator is so freakin good she made this book come to LIFFEE
February 18, 2024
i liked this book! it was my first book of the authors and i enjoyed her writing style. plus i hear SUCH A FUN AGE is her best so i’m eager to check that one out (on my 2024 TBR).
overall it was enjoyable and i really liked the campus setting, but i think it will be a bit forgettable overtime and not stick with me as a favorite read of the year mainly… because it just “ended.” i wanted some more resolution! maybe a chapter “10 months later”?
i was impressed by how many different topics the author wrote about and made you think about subconsciously. there is so much history of a person that makes you who you are and makes you act a certain way, and i really loved how she showed that for every different character. doing this on a college campus was a very creative use of a setting.
i listened to this on audio and really liked that version and the narrator. it was an extremely easy book to listen to while i was walking and running errands and i found myself laughing at so many different parts. i will say the pacing was a bit off too—the beginning has me hooked, the middle had me wondering where this was going to go, then the backhalf ending really ramped up with some drama and action… and then it just ended 🥲
this is a me problem, but i personally always struggle with literary fiction but i do like like reading it, so i always have this nonstop conundrum. as a thriller lover and reader by heart, i’m usually always waiting for some major twist or plot event to happen, but then i have to remind myself that that’s typically not the case with litfic novels so once i adjust my expectations, i’m able to just enjoy the book for what it is. which is what happened here. i loved all the character dynamics, but there was one part of a characters’ past that i could have lived without (it was with Kennedy at Iowa…that’s all i’ll say). this is a plot device that i see authors use actually quite often and i have no idea why!
TLDR; my first book of this authors, i’m eager to read SUCH A FUN AGE, liked it but didn’t love, enjoyed the narrator.
overall it was enjoyable and i really liked the campus setting, but i think it will be a bit forgettable overtime and not stick with me as a favorite read of the year mainly… because it just “ended.” i wanted some more resolution! maybe a chapter “10 months later”?
i was impressed by how many different topics the author wrote about and made you think about subconsciously. there is so much history of a person that makes you who you are and makes you act a certain way, and i really loved how she showed that for every different character. doing this on a college campus was a very creative use of a setting.
i listened to this on audio and really liked that version and the narrator. it was an extremely easy book to listen to while i was walking and running errands and i found myself laughing at so many different parts. i will say the pacing was a bit off too—the beginning has me hooked, the middle had me wondering where this was going to go, then the backhalf ending really ramped up with some drama and action… and then it just ended 🥲
this is a me problem, but i personally always struggle with literary fiction but i do like like reading it, so i always have this nonstop conundrum. as a thriller lover and reader by heart, i’m usually always waiting for some major twist or plot event to happen, but then i have to remind myself that that’s typically not the case with litfic novels so once i adjust my expectations, i’m able to just enjoy the book for what it is. which is what happened here. i loved all the character dynamics, but there was one part of a characters’ past that i could have lived without (it was with Kennedy at Iowa…that’s all i’ll say). this is a plot device that i see authors use actually quite often and i have no idea why!
TLDR; my first book of this authors, i’m eager to read SUCH A FUN AGE, liked it but didn’t love, enjoyed the narrator.
Read
January 8, 2024Here’s the thing: if Nicole Lewis is performing an audiobook, you MUST listen to that audiobook. If Nicole Lewis is leaving a *voicemail*, that voicemail is going to be a club banger. She is simply extraordinary. She did the audiobook for my favorite listen of 2022, Sweet, Soft, Plenty Rhythm (INCREDIBLE book) and I was DELIGHTED to start 2024 with this out-of-this-world performance on Come and Get It. I cannot BELIEVE some of the tiny, deeply meaningful, brilliant acting choices she makes in this polyphonic, thrilling novel of people making the, like, third worst choice they could make in a series of circumstances. I devoured this book. Some reviews say that nothing happened. Respectfully I say “Tuh!” I’ve lived a thousand lives. At the end of the day, Kiley Reid is going to write Kiley Reid novels and this is very that and I mean that in the most complimentary way. Race and class and gender and gray area relationships and age all come together in such a glorious, confounding soup. Brand names tell you so much about who these people are, but not more than their incredibly distinctive voices. And—here I go again—Nicole Lewis picks up that baton and twirls it higher, further, faster than any baton has ever flown before. Loved it. I’m not rating books anymore in 2024 unless they’re debuts but I think I’ve made myself clear.
July 21, 2023
Enjoyed this way more than her first book. It was super smart and hilarious, and also relatable as a former RA at a southern school. The characters felt so real and developed which is hard to do with such a large ensemble. Her craft really shines through in this book.
Thank you to NetGalley.
Thank you to NetGalley.
January 15, 2024
I think it’s safe to say— Nobody writes characters like Kiley Reid. Come and Get it is a captivating portrayal of multiple distinct and complicated characters at the University of Arkansas. Kiley read is brilliant at characterization, and that is undeniably where the strength of this novel lies. There’s a certain curiosity that Kiley cultivates in her writing that keeps you turning the page. Despite there not being much plot, I was thoroughly entertained.
At first, I was underwhelmed at the depiction of the themes described in the book summary. Up until about 50% I was wondering… where is this going? The themes are so subtle it almost makes it hard to describe what this book is about. The character building was great, but I was worried. Kiley Reid introduces so many characters that I knew if she couldn’t make a meaningful connection then this book would just not be good. It wasn’t until the very end that I was able to conclude what the central theme is (in my opinion) and where everything connects to make a really good, cohesive character study. At the core of this story is selfish ambition; it is about what happens you let your innermost desires drive your decisions. And the desires of the characters are not inherently bad, but it’s pursuing those desires with reckless abandon that has these characters spiraling at the end. It took the entire length of the book for this theme to be truly developed, but it was satisfying to arrive there. The backdrop of the university is the perfect setting, because where else do you have people who are not related in such a close proximity, all the time?
Here’s the thing though, a lot of people are going to give up around the 30-45% mark. I urge you— keep going with an open mind. I know we live in a “DNF if you don’t like it” world, but I encourage you to just enjoy sitting with these characters and not trying to rush ahead and worry about “what’s going to happen.” Keep in mind, the nature of this genre that is contemporary literary fiction is a bit more abstract. Now if you know that’s just not your thing, don’t bother with it! But I think this one is worth the ride.
At first, I was underwhelmed at the depiction of the themes described in the book summary. Up until about 50% I was wondering… where is this going? The themes are so subtle it almost makes it hard to describe what this book is about. The character building was great, but I was worried. Kiley Reid introduces so many characters that I knew if she couldn’t make a meaningful connection then this book would just not be good. It wasn’t until the very end that I was able to conclude what the central theme is (in my opinion) and where everything connects to make a really good, cohesive character study. At the core of this story is selfish ambition; it is about what happens you let your innermost desires drive your decisions. And the desires of the characters are not inherently bad, but it’s pursuing those desires with reckless abandon that has these characters spiraling at the end. It took the entire length of the book for this theme to be truly developed, but it was satisfying to arrive there. The backdrop of the university is the perfect setting, because where else do you have people who are not related in such a close proximity, all the time?
Here’s the thing though, a lot of people are going to give up around the 30-45% mark. I urge you— keep going with an open mind. I know we live in a “DNF if you don’t like it” world, but I encourage you to just enjoy sitting with these characters and not trying to rush ahead and worry about “what’s going to happen.” Keep in mind, the nature of this genre that is contemporary literary fiction is a bit more abstract. Now if you know that’s just not your thing, don’t bother with it! But I think this one is worth the ride.
May 17, 2023
Highly Recommended!
Kiley Reid can hit you where it hurts, and I am all here for it! Her debut novel, Such a Fun Age drew attention to multiple issue of race in America, teasing out the nuances and highlighting the micro aggressions. Her beautiful writing leads you slowly down a path that you fear can only lead to a disaster.
In her sophomore effort Reid takes on a midwestern college campus. There are college students - transfers in student housing and seniors acting as Resident Advisors as well as a visiting professor. How they all interact is fascinating and Reid easily pulls you into the thought process of each character as they make choices that will effect the rest of the year and maybe their lives. If you like contemporary culture novels, Shakespearean characters, campus stories or are just ready for Kiley Reid's next great book, Come and Get It is for you!
#penguingroup #KileyReid #comeandgetit
Kiley Reid can hit you where it hurts, and I am all here for it! Her debut novel, Such a Fun Age drew attention to multiple issue of race in America, teasing out the nuances and highlighting the micro aggressions. Her beautiful writing leads you slowly down a path that you fear can only lead to a disaster.
In her sophomore effort Reid takes on a midwestern college campus. There are college students - transfers in student housing and seniors acting as Resident Advisors as well as a visiting professor. How they all interact is fascinating and Reid easily pulls you into the thought process of each character as they make choices that will effect the rest of the year and maybe their lives. If you like contemporary culture novels, Shakespearean characters, campus stories or are just ready for Kiley Reid's next great book, Come and Get It is for you!
#penguingroup #KileyReid #comeandgetit
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