Come and Get It: A GMA Book Club Pick

Tough read; all the characters are unlikable for me.

This is an odd book, a little disturbing really in that way that’s quite real, like these flawed characters definitely exist in real life and the pace at which we’re following their stories is very believable (ie. quite slow at times). I really had to push through to finish this as I had no idea what the story was about or where it was going most of the time, and to be honest the ending feels adrift as well, but by the last few chapters curiosity did get the better of me and I did want to find out what happened to each character. Ninety-eight percent of the characters are women and damn, we are really not great to each other some times!! 😅

Three books inspired the three protagonists in Kiley Reid’s Come and Get It. Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality birthed professor and journalist Agatha Paul. Monoculture: How One Story Is Changing Everything delivered undergrad Kennedy. Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics created RA Millie. As a Resident Assistant, Millie loves jobs and rules and saving money so much that she doesn't see when she’s being used. She tends to assume responsibility for other people’s emotional wellbeing to the exclusion of her own sense of visibility. That all changes when Tyler enters her hall. “Tyler was a catty, socially muscular person who valued loyalty and had a beautiful laugh.” “This was Tyler’s thing: doing pranks, taking naps, collecting Peytons and Joanies along the way.” Of the Casey, Jenna, Tyler trio, the latter quickly becomes the character we all love to hate. When she discovers a Halloween decorating contest with a five hundred dollar award for both house and decorator, Tyler plans the perfect theme: “Instead of Woo Pig, it’s Boo Pig…She’s getting all of these vintage Razorback pictures and she’s adding little costumes with like, glitter and felt.” But when the RAs beat her at her own game, Tyler is dead set on revenge. “The best kind of revenge is showin’ you don’t care”--not about what was done to you but about the people you destroy in your wake. Meanwhile, Tyler’s suitemate Kennedy arrives on the hall battling to believe that she is “not–biologically, spiritually, or emotionally–composed of the worst mistake she’d ever made.” She transfers to the college in hopes of working with visiting professor and emotional idol Agatha Paul, but what begins as a harmless research project sparks a relational and publication fling that quickly becomes Agatha’s greatest regret. “Classy is bein’ respectful, not just of others but of yourself.” I wasn’t ready for this story to end…like Agatha, I “knew, in some capacity, [I’d] miss Tyler, Jenna, and Casey. The feeling of being invested in their lives, it was thrilling and terrible.” They were like a reality TV series, and I felt like I knew them. “To write something beautiful you just do it regular, and then you pull out a red pen” and Come and Get It!

One of the worst books I’ve ever