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A review by okiecozyreader
Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
emotional
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Such an interesting start to a book:
“You are about to begin reading a new book, and to be honest, you are a little tense. The beginning of a novel is like a first date. You hope that from the first lines an urgent magic will take hold, and you will sink into the story like a hot bath, giving yourself over entirely. But this hope is tempered by the expectation that, in reality, you are about to have to learn a bunch of people’s names and follow along politely like you are attending the baby shower of a woman you hardly know. And that’s fine, goodness knows you’ve fallen in love with books that didn’t grab you in the first paragraph. But that doesn’t stop you from wishing they would, ...”
This start made me really question what I was reading. Margo begins the book with the delivery of her child and then goes back to tell us how she met the father of her child (a professor while she was a freshman). He taught a writing class, and throughout the novel, she refers back to how a writer lies to the reader.
“They are only interesting because they aren’t real. The fakeness is where the interest lies. In fact, I would go so far as to say that all things that are genuinely interesting aren’t quite real.” Ch 1
“At the end, the narrator begins addressing the reader in first person, about how he doesn’t even understand the story he’s been telling, which you know can’t be true or else why would he be telling it?” Ch 17
Even in the acknowledgements, Rudi writes
“Thank you for letting me into the dark of your mind and allowing me to relentlessly, anguished-ly, excitedly lie to you.”
So, this is a book for those who like unreliable narrators, for sure.
Margo has this child, and the father wants nothing to do with her. She is in an expensive apartment and trying to figure out how to afford it and hold a job without being able to afford childcare and her roommates aren’t interested in being roommates with an infant.
I felt like the book was very much about being a young mother without really understanding what being a mother entails (like childcare, holding a job, dealing with illness and how pregnancy changes your body).
“I want you to close your eyes and actually remember what it was like to be twenty.” Ch 20
She talks about how unseen she felt:
“How much kindness would mean right now, and how unwilling anyone was to give it. How sacred the baby was to her, and how mundane and irritating the baby was to others.” Ch 3
“Shouldn’t there be someone in charge of how many bad things could happen at once?” Ch 4
“You can’t tell me that if it was men and a medical decision would result in their penis splitting open and them not being able to hold their pee for the rest of their life, they wouldn’t think that should be their own decision.” Ch 19
“You are about to begin reading a new book, and to be honest, you are a little tense. The beginning of a novel is like a first date. You hope that from the first lines an urgent magic will take hold, and you will sink into the story like a hot bath, giving yourself over entirely. But this hope is tempered by the expectation that, in reality, you are about to have to learn a bunch of people’s names and follow along politely like you are attending the baby shower of a woman you hardly know. And that’s fine, goodness knows you’ve fallen in love with books that didn’t grab you in the first paragraph. But that doesn’t stop you from wishing they would, ...”
This start made me really question what I was reading. Margo begins the book with the delivery of her child and then goes back to tell us how she met the father of her child (a professor while she was a freshman). He taught a writing class, and throughout the novel, she refers back to how a writer lies to the reader.
“They are only interesting because they aren’t real. The fakeness is where the interest lies. In fact, I would go so far as to say that all things that are genuinely interesting aren’t quite real.” Ch 1
“At the end, the narrator begins addressing the reader in first person, about how he doesn’t even understand the story he’s been telling, which you know can’t be true or else why would he be telling it?” Ch 17
Even in the acknowledgements, Rudi writes
“Thank you for letting me into the dark of your mind and allowing me to relentlessly, anguished-ly, excitedly lie to you.”
So, this is a book for those who like unreliable narrators, for sure.
Margo has this child, and the father wants nothing to do with her. She is in an expensive apartment and trying to figure out how to afford it and hold a job without being able to afford childcare and her roommates aren’t interested in being roommates with an infant.
I felt like the book was very much about being a young mother without really understanding what being a mother entails (like childcare, holding a job, dealing with illness and how pregnancy changes your body).
“I want you to close your eyes and actually remember what it was like to be twenty.” Ch 20
She talks about how unseen she felt:
“How much kindness would mean right now, and how unwilling anyone was to give it. How sacred the baby was to her, and how mundane and irritating the baby was to others.” Ch 3
“Shouldn’t there be someone in charge of how many bad things could happen at once?” Ch 4
“You can’t tell me that if it was men and a medical decision would result in their penis splitting open and them not being able to hold their pee for the rest of their life, they wouldn’t think that should be their own decision.” Ch 19
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Drug abuse, and Pregnancy