Campus novels are all the rage, aren’t they? That intoxicating mix of students going wild and the power held by academic sorts. Love affairs. Friendships. Enormous questions about life choices. Kiley Reid’s second novel does explore all the above, but it also does more. Reid uses this campus romp genre to explore identity, race, language, and class, and to hold a mirror up to our changing world. 

Millie is a serious sort; she is saving for a house, working as a residential advisor in a college dormitory, and has her life sorted. Professor Agatha Paul, recently heartbroken, offers Millie extra money to set up student interviews for a new book she is writing on weddings. Her last book covered funerals, but as Agatha listens to the young female students, she realises that money is a more interesting topic. She becomes interested in questions of whether money gives you freedom, friendship, and benefits? Millie and Agatha’s relationship builds, and over time the answers to Agatha’s questions become clear as their friendship changes. And the lives of the students she is researching become interwoven with Agatha’s writing self.

This character-driven novel sets out to show how micro-aggressions cause fractures, and abuses of power have repercussions. Reid uses the stories of these women to showcase how money – whether you have it or not – corrupts society and hides truths. Along the way, Reid will make you laugh aloud, she will ensure you reflect on your own path, and she will make sure that you remember that it is not money that lasts, but rather your own self-belief.  

Do not read this because you have decided to read every coming-of-age book, read it because this offers you something new. Make no mistake, this novel is a sharp satire on us all.