Margot’s Got Money Troubles is a fun and relevant book that really opens your eyes to the struggles that some people face just to try and make a living. There were several things that I really enjoyed about this novel and a lot of it dealt with the characters, the humorous writing, and the fact that it seriously makes you think about the way we judge other people without even knowing them.

The main thing that this book is about (before going into my favs and flaws of this book), is how Margo, our main protagonist, has had a baby fathered by her college professor. She doesn’t realize how much work a baby truly is (and boy is it WORK – but also a lot of love), and she underestimates how hard it is to find affordable childcare. So, she signs up for OnlyFans and begins to make money through that platform. Through this work, she finds that she has been judged more and criticized for trying to have a home and food for her child. Literally, like I said, this book is SO relatable. As a mother, this book was like a glass of water thrown in my face. Not in a bad way because I really enjoyed the book, but in a way that kind of makes you go, “Wow, she just summed up all of my grievances with the world in a few hundred pages.” So, with that said, I’m gonna talk about how much I loved the characters.

With the characters specifically, Margo is highly relatable as a woman (I feel like I’m going to be saying “relatable” a LOT – someone give me some synonyms!). There was a moment in the beginning of the novel where she mentions that she felt so incredibly stupid for having a uterus and there have been so many times in my life where I have felt the same. She was naïve but also brave. She accepted her decisions and never really complained about them. She just moved forward. Her entire character is beautifully written, and she was the epitome of someone that I’d honestly look up to. Her father, while flawed, is still someone that I enjoyed reading about. Suzi, Margo’s roommate, was adorable and the opposite of Margo in her small demeanor and quiet thoughtfulness. These characters made the novel.

One thing to keep in mind is that there is a small bit of romance in the novel. No spice, but I honestly didn’t mind because this book is built on so much more than that. I didn’t like the way that the romance started, but that’s just my opinion. I felt wary the whole time the romance was building and was a tad bit worried, so I didn’t get to really enjoy the emotions of it.

With the OnlyFans aspect of this novel, it was an eye-opener because I personally don’t agree with OnlyFans, but the perspective that this novel gives, I think about that work a little differently now. I still don’t agree with it, but I would honestly never crucify someone just because that’s their line of work. Margo was in such a tight spot and she made it work without ever putting her child at risk and giving him the most loving and stable home. It was admirable. I have honestly been in situations where I’ve wondered, “What if I just sign up to make the money that my salary can’t keep up with?” Mostly just for non-revealing things like feet, but still 😂.

My favorite part about Margo using this platform for work was her drive to figure out the algorithm and how to cater and advertise to her fans. This was so great and I loved those snippets of the “all business” Margo because this is how I often feel when running a blog. What’s the best I can do in terms of SEO? How do I attract more people to my blog? What’s the best way to make this hobby turn into something more substantial? Like Margo, I honestly love the business side of running a blog and I absolutely adore reading, so I identify with what Margo was trying to achieve.

The next thing I want to talk about is how lighthearted and FUNNY this book was. Rufi Thorpe has written this book in such a way that the hard topics are still so fun to read about. Margo goes through so much in this novel but never—not once—did I feel like it was too heavy to read. It was comical and relatable (there’s that word again…) and so very very important. I loved it all.

So, the last thing that I want to go over is the main theme of this novel: how we judge other people. We often look at other people and look down on them just because of what they do. I think it’s so crazy that we do this (even though I’m guilty of doing this at times, too) because, in all honestly, we’re all just trying to survive. That’s it. That’s what we’re all doing. Trying to live. Trying to find happiness. Trying to make it work. What hit me hardest with this book is how honestly it presents motherhood and finding help while you’re raising a child, and then when you finally make it work (like Margo with OnlyFans), they judge you for being successful and not needing as much help. Absolutely insane. While I do agree that OnlyFans is in all accounts porn, we still can’t say that we are better than someone else just on the basis of what they do to survive.

Okay, for the flaws. There are only two things that kind of bothered me. Margo’s mom and Mark, Bodie’s father. I’ll start with Margo’s mom because, phew, she’s a doozy.

I sent a novel in recently to get developmentally edited by an agent that I paid for the work and one of his main critiques is that the mother was just so… evil. There was nothing there. No shining moments of the human beneath. This is how I felt about Margo’s mom. She always had an agenda. She would be nice, but only to benefit her. Margo talked highly of her mother and always tried to please her, but I honestly didn’t see why she even tried. There was the “oh, but she’s my mom” and, like my editor said, sometimes that’s just not enough. It didn’t feel like enough of an argument for Margo and her mother felt soo one-dimensional.

Mark, God bless him, was a douchebag. I didn’t see the reasoning behind getting an NDA and then doing what he did afterwards. It didn’t seem right to me that his storyline wrapped up the way it did. I felt like it was convenient and it didn’t sit right, but that’s just me. Those are my only two grievances with this novel, though.

Overall, I really loved so much about this book. I loved the characters and the writing. I loved the themes and I loved the messages. The only flaws that I truly found were with Mark and Margo’s Mom’s characters. They felt underdeveloped and their motivations were lacking in a lot of the decisions they made. With an entire novel, though, and those two are the only ones I can complain about (I don’t even have complaints for the writing or plot), that’s a win. 5/5 stars for the enjoyable read that I couldn’t put down.

Source: Personal Copy from Book of the Month

(P.S. You can read this book for free by signing up for a free trial of Audible, which gives you two free audiobooks of your choice!)