20-year-old Margo sleeps with her professor, gets pregnant, keeps the baby, and discovers what a capitalist hellscape the U.S. is for mothers of all stripes, but particularly the unwed. Creating porn online becomes the only ethical way to survive, and this searing social commentary is wrapped up with so much humor and heart the book practically explodes with it. Her father Jinx (ex-pro wrestler, addict), her roommate Suzie (cosplayer extraordinaire), her lawyer Ward (lowkey one of the best characters in the book), and a host of fellow sex workers team up to become her ad-hoc support system, creating a found family in a way that rarely exists outside of LGBTQ books. (It need to be more common! In all kinds of books! Found family for everyone!)
What I love most is that not a single character can be reduced to their 1–2 word descriptor. Everyone is a meat suit of startling complexity (except maybe the uber-religious stepfather, who fulfills his role to perfection). Thorpe also does some highly clever metatextual breaking of the fourth wall, switching between first and third POV to make various points about performance and fiction and the roles we play for an audience. This kind of experiment in less capable hands would be a disaster. Here, it’s brilliant. This will be on my year-end list of best books, for sure.
PSSSSST I WOULD ACCEPT AN AU WHERE MARGO ENDS UP WITH SUZIE, THAT WAS THE ONLY FLAW