COME & GET IT by Kiley Reid

Millie is a 24-year-old Resident Assistant for a women’s dorm at the University of Arkansas.  Agatha is a successful author and visiting professor, also at the University of Arkansas, who intends to interview students there for her next book.  However, that project gets sidelined in favor of stories for Teen Vogue when she discovers that she can eavesdrop on three students who live in the suite next to Millie’s.  Things get really messy eventually, but we have to wade through hundreds of uneventful pages in the meantime.  The plot for most of the book is somewhere between thin and non-existent, as I kept wondering where on earth this was going.  Retaliatory dorm pranks make some of the characters seem particularly immature and unlikeable.  Other characters prove themselves to be guilty of insanely bad judgment, particularly Kennedy, one the students in the suite next to Millie’s.  She’s a transfer to the U of A due to an incident that led me to think she has some kind of personality disorder, but I’m certainly not qualified to diagnose it.  Millie is in line for a promotion to Resident Director next term, but she disappoints by displaying a streak of cowardice near the end.  Agatha, whose ethical compass definitely shows signs of needing an adjustment, is the one who at least has a backbone, facing up to her misdeeds and offering financial reparations.  I’m not sure what this book is supposed to be about, but perhaps it’s a statement on our transactional society, and it doesn’t bode well.