Name: Margo's Got Money Troubles
Rating: 3.897727272727273 (44 reviews)
ISBN: 9780063356580

Rufi Thorpe

"A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman's attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world-from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen"--

A Novel

Margo's Got Money Troubles

ikkychan

As a woman, I believe one of the greatest scams in human history is motherhood. There is no hypocrisy more profound than being asked to give birth in a system that sings you praises while pressing your face into the dirt. There is no greater conundrum than the chasm between the symbolic glorification of motherhood and the material, social, and psychological realities mothers endure. Society tells mothers, You are everything, while treating them as if they are nothing—unless they are in service to others. This isn't a random flaw; it's a systemic feature rooted in deep-seated structures that thrives on the exploitation and devaluation of women’s unpaid labors. This systemic gaslighting is what Rufi Thorpe has been dismantling since her debut, and it reaches a sharp culmination in 
 Margo’s Got Money Troubles
. In this novel, she tears down the myth of motherhood by grounding it in unglamorous reality: insufferable men, condescending doctors, patronizing social workers, inherited trauma, social isolation—and money, always money. At its core, the novel asks how capitalism turns identity—especially female identity—into labor. Motherhood, sexuality, even authenticity become monetizable performances. Morality gets measured in dollars. Sit with this for a moment: why does a young mother starting an OnlyFans account feel more scandalous than lifelong debt? Why do we judge how women survive more harshly than the systems that corner them? The story centers on Margo, who has money troubles—unsurprisingly—after choosing to keep her pregnancy against the better judgment of everyone around her. Shyanne, her mother, obsessed with female beauty yet scandalized when Margo weaponizes it for survival. Becca, cushioned by privilege, unable to grasp the severity of Margo’s financial precarity. Mark, the professor who impregnates her, retreats neatly back into his wife and two children. Young, broke, and newly dropped out, Margo is hit by single motherhood with the force of an eighteen-wheeler. Pregnancy disillusions her not only about romance and security, but about the extent of the systemic damage handed down by her own parents. There is no force more radicalizing than being a woman, and no desperation more clarifying than being a broke mother with an infant. Margo turns to digital sex work not as rebellion, but as strategy. At its foundation, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a novel about how money becomes a moral measuring stick. Poverty is not treated as misfortune but as failure. Margo’s debt, her impulsiveness, her lack of foresight—these are read not simply as circumstances but as evidence of flawed character. The judgment she faces is less about what she does and more about what her instability supposedly says about who she is. The outrage surrounding her OnlyFans account reveals this hypocrisy most clearly. The discomfort is framed as sexual concern, but the novel suggests otherwise. What truly disturbs people is that Margo finds a way to monetize her body without performing the “respectable” version of suffering—without quietly enduring poverty, without shrinking in shame. In Thorpe’s world, solvency equals virtue. Insolvency equals suspicion. Financial competence is mistaken for moral superiority; financial instability becomes moral contamination. This is the pressure cooker in which the novel operates. Motherhood only intensifies this scrutiny. Thorpe dismantles the myth of the sacred, selfless mother who exists outside the marketplace. Margo is not spiritually transformed by childbirth. She is overwhelmed, exhausted, loving, resentful, frightened, practical. Her maternal instinct does not erase her ambition or her financial anxiety. Yet culturally, we demand that it should. We expect maternal love to look pure—untouched by calculation, free from transaction. A mother may sacrifice, but she must never strategize. This is why the horror at Margo’s digital sex work feels disproportionate. Society is more unsettled by a mother monetizing sexuality than by a mother drowning in debt. The former feels morally tainted; the latter feels tragically appropriate. Thorpe destabilizes the comforting illusion that motherhood exists outside capitalism. She forces us to ask: why must maternal love appear financially disinterested in order to be considered real? From there, the novel widens its scope. Margo’s OnlyFans presence is not an anomaly but a hyper-visible example of contemporary performance culture. OnlyFans offers curated intimacy. Influencers curate authenticity. Professional wrestlers curate aggression. Social media curates selfhood. Just as RuPaul said it, “We're all born naked, and the rest is drag"---everyone is performing something. The difference is that Margo is explicit about it—and she gets paid. Thorpe collapses the illusion that some identities are “authentic” while others are artificial. Authenticity itself has become a commodity, shaped by audience expectation and economic necessity. Identity is no longer merely expressed; it is managed, packaged, and circulated. Here the themes converge: money dictates morality, motherhood is judged economically, and the self becomes a product. Margo is not uniquely compromised. She is simply honest about the system the rest of us quietly participate in. What makes the novel compelling is that Thorpe refuses clean conclusions. She is not arguing that sex work is inherently empowering. She is not staging a simplistic takedown of capitalism. She is not dismissing motherhood as performance. Instead, she exposes something more uncomfortable: morality does not exist outside economic systems, no matter how badly we pretend it does. Even our outrage follows market logic. More sharply, the shame directed at women like Margo serves a function. It protects the fantasy that survival should look noble, that hardship should be endured quietly, that motherhood must remain untouched by money. By refusing to grant Margo either total victimhood or triumphant empowerment, Thorpe denies us moral relief. There is no redemption arc polished for comfort. There is only negotiation, compromise, and survival. And that unresolved tension is precisely the point.

Clara

This was quite good until its very end, which was really... American.

I found that the novel managed to build complex characters with equially complex motivations, and treat them with so much compassion. This is particularly important that it deals with a cast of characters representing a social stratum of vulnerable people who are often dismissed and demonised.

I found Margo's motivations for keeping her baby and then resorting to sex work at a time when she felt utterly alone and abandoned, consistent with the choices of a 19- / 20-year old college dropout. The narration never frames this as a tragedy (which helps keep the novel grounded and compelling), but it is still true that the consistent lack of support from the people around her left her particularly susceptible to this. I liked this element to the story, I thought it was well done - so much so that I was surprised such a nuanced depiction was coming from a pop novel.

But then, at the very end, when the novel tries to deal with some of the ethical questions involved in aiding other people in their sex work and getting paid for it, it just falls flat. If we are being honest, it already starts struggling with some of its concepts when it starts talking about the normalisation of sex work in contemporary society (and among vulnerable groups, such as young single mums). It is like it is on the precipice of saying something profound but it never quite gets there.

I still found the overall execution surprisingly good and would not discourage people from picking it up - for what that is worth.

This was quite good until its very end, which was really... American.

I found that the novel managed to build complex characters with equially complex motivations, and treat them with so much compassion. This is particularly important that it deals with a cast of characters representing a social stratum of vulnerable people who are often dismissed and demonised.

I found Margo's motivations for keeping her baby and then resorting to sex work at a time when she felt utterly alone and abandoned, consistent with the choices of a 19- / 20-year old college dropout. The narration never frames this as a tragedy (which helps keep the novel grounded and compelling), but it is still true that the consistent lack of support from the people around her left her particularly susceptible to this. I liked this element to the story, I thought it was well done - so much so that I was surprised such a nuanced depiction was coming from a pop novel.

But then, at the very end, when the novel tries to deal with some of the ethical questions involved in aiding other people in their sex work and getting paid for it, it just falls flat. If we are being honest, it already starts struggling with some of its concepts when it starts talking about the normalisation of sex work in contemporary society (and among vulnerable groups, such as young single mums). It is like it is on the precipice of saying something profound but it never quite gets there.

I still found the overall execution surprisingly good and would not discourage people from picking it up - for what that is worth.

Overall a cute funny book with the reiterating theme that sex work is work. It got weird and sappy toward the end but overall I enjoyed it. Also, Cheyenne is the absolute worst 😤

Jessy Tatum

If you were ever curious about the similarities between onlyfans and professional wrestling... this book is for you. Delightful 

Rebecca Harwood

Did this book actually make me want to have a baby?

Bonus review for writers: there’s always a new way to break the freaking mold!!!

Margo Koss

Did this book actually make me want to have a baby?

Bonus review for writers: there’s always a new way to break the freaking mold!!!

Sweet, unique, funny. Margo gets herself in quite a pickle despite being a well-intentioned person. If anything, I hated that the book's worst character just kinda redeems themself in one scene. But a good page turned to start the year off with!

Katelyn Caillouet

"Arguing that women have the right to sell their bodies is an attempt to hide the argument that men have the right to buy women." 

This book is incredibly well written and was a joy to read. It was the first time I have ever seen an author talk about social media in a way that wasn’t completely cringy (although I hace to admit that I did not love the tiktok storyline)

This is a lighthearted book that I throughly enjoyed, although I would say that was due to the writing, and not necessarily the story. It deals with complex family dynamics and is eye opening about struggles that many of us will never experience, mostly highlighting how hypocritical the world is regarding subjects like drugs and sex.

The reason why this book is not rated higher is the underlying argument that sex work is empowering, which I think is a harmful idea, specially for young women struggling financially, like Margo. The “empowering” ending of the book bothered me a little. Far from me to shame women who are doing sex work, but the way it is portrayed as an easy way to gain money bothered me, because it is not realistic. I believe the book “glamorised” the reality that most of these women face, limiting itself to barely grazing the surface of the problematic dynamics it brings. 

However, I also understand it is supposed to be a “lighthearted, funny” book and not feminist literature. And if that is what you are looking for, a book to laugh and take your mind off life for a bit, I think this absolutely does it’s job. 

Brunella

"Arguing that women have the right to sell their bodies is an attempt to hide the argument that men have the right to buy women." 

- Francoise Heritier

This book is incredibly well written and was a joy to read. It was the first time I have ever seen an author talk about social media in a way that wasn’t completely cringy (although I hace to admit that I did not love the tiktok storyline)

This is a lighthearted book that I throughly enjoyed, although I would say that was due to the writing, and not necessarily the story. It deals with complex family dynamics and is eye opening about struggles that many of us will never experience, mostly highlighting how hypocritical the world is regarding subjects like drugs and sex.

The reason why this book is not rated higher is the underlying argument that sex work is empowering, which I think is a harmful idea, specially for young women struggling financially, like Margo. The “empowering” ending of the book bothered me a little. Far from me to shame women who are doing sex work, but the way it is portrayed as an easy way to gain money bothered me, because it is not realistic. I believe the book “glamorised” the reality that most of these women face, limiting itself to barely grazing the surface of the problematic dynamics it brings. 

However, I also understand it is supposed to be a “lighthearted, funny” book and not feminist literature. And if that is what you are looking for, a book to laugh and take your mind off life for a bit, I think this absolutely does it’s job. 

Abby Brake

˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶

Claudia

Jenny Engel

Soon to be a series from A24 & Apple TV+ starring Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman, Michelle Pfeiffer, & Nick Offerman! “Margo’s Got Money Troubles is the feel-good novel we need right now.” —The Washington Post “[An] enormously entertaining and lovable book.” —Nick Hornby, New York Times Book Review A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen. As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger. Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price? Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off. “A wholly original novel. . . . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end.” —The Associated Press

Margo's Got Money Troubles A Novel

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