‘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
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
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Reviews
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.
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
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.
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!
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?
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.
The most captivating narrative of motherhood, sex work, point of view, and regret. I'm obsessed!
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.
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
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
Endearingly chaotic, this coming-of-age tale is certain to score a passionate fanbase
Thorpe's literary hum has translated into a resounding roar . . . beyond Thorpe's strong characters and tight plots, what sets her apart from her peers is the gnawing philosophical tension that rests at the centre of her books . . . Thorpe allows her characters to remain flawed but bent toward redemption in this wholly entertaining, utterly endearing and thought-provoking novel that asks, "What kind of truth would require this many lies to tell?" Thorpe's novels defy easy categorization. Her characters' radiant energy and her books' knotted plots don't align with the moody atmosphere and tone poem quality of most contemporary literary fiction. Yet, these novels remain more intense and rigorous than most upmarket women's fiction. It's exhilarating to find an author who wants to tell you a good yarn, but also ask a lot of complicated questions
Deeply funny, thoughtful, riveting
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
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
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
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.
A whipsmart novel with a completely surprising heroine who comprehensively wins your heart . . . Rufi Thorpe has crafted a wholly original tale that manages to build a deliciously immersive fictional world full of intriguing characters while blatantly questioning notions of storytelling, and to offer serious challenges to ideas about young mothers and sex work while being wryly and often inappropriately funny. It's been snapped up for an Apple TV+ series, starring Elle Fanning and Nicole Kidman, but get in first with the book - it's definitely worth savouring Thorpe's prose on the page.
The premise is good and the execution even better - nonjudgmental, original and very funny; the book is warm and generous too. I loved it.
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.