53 pages • 1 hour read
Kiley ReidCome and Get It
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses racist behavior, a relationship with an imbalanced power dynamic, depression, thoughts of self-harm and suicidal ideation, and accidental animal death.
In 2017, Agatha Paul, a white journalist, is a visiting professor in nonfiction and cultural studies at the University of Arkansas. She arrives at Belgrade Dormitory, the university’s residence for scholarship and transfer students, to interview three undergraduate residents for a book she is writing about wedding culture. Agatha meets Millie Cousins, a Black resident assistant (RA) who leads her to the resident lounge and brings in the respondents: Tyler Hanna, a junior, Jenna Saddler, a sophomore, and Casey, a senior.
After asking an initial round of questions about weddings, Agatha is compelled to follow up on statements the girls make about their access to money. Jenna shares that she receives a “practice paycheck” from her father while also working at the alumni services office for her “fun money.” Tyler adds that all three of them have scholarships.
When Jenna describes a friend’s wedding idea as “ghetto,” Agatha asks what she means. The girls are unable to define it but contextualize the word further by using it to describe broken phone screens and wedding after parties. Finally, Tyler describes Millie as being “ghetto” and does a brazen impression of her to qualify her statement.
Throughout the interview, Agatha’s repulsion for the girls reminds her about her ex-partner, Robin, who often shared her repulsions with Agatha. As the session ends, Agatha tries to get the girls to talk more about their “fun money” but fails to get a concrete answer.
Before leaving the dormitory, Agatha encounters Millie once again, whom she pays for her help in arranging the interview. Though Millie had previously declined to join the interview, she hints at having eavesdropped the whole time, hearing Tyler’s impression of her, which she refutes as an exaggeration. Millie corrects the girls’ statements about their earnings, noting that Jenna’s office salary is hardly enough to cover her frequent nail and hair treatments.
Chapter 2 Summary
The narrative flashes back to Millie’s early life. She was born when her parents were in their early forties. Millie’s childhood is marked by a wide range of extracurricular activities, especially camping. In many of her extracurriculars, she takes on leadership roles. During her sophomore year of university, she starts working as an RA. The following year, her mother, Glory, develops glaucoma, which prompts Millie to take a year off from school to look after her. During that time, Millie loses weight and starts microdosing marijuana with Glory, leading the two of them to grow closer together. Millie also develops the aspiration to become a homeowner in Fayetteville, taking on a summer job to build up her savings.
Millie returns to the university at her mother’s urging. She is placed as an RA in Belgrade Dormitory, which has an unfavorable reputation among students. She meets the other RAs—Joanie, Ryland, and Colette—and is surprised to learn that the new resident director at Belgrade, Josh, has bulked up over the summer. Millie becomes attracted to him. When she moves into her floor with Colette, Millie learns that Colette and Joanie have an antagonistic relationship with one another. Colette endears herself to Millie.
Chapter 3 Summary
The RAs welcome the students to Belgrade on move-in day. Tyler approaches Millie to help with a problem in her suite. She explains that she needs Millie’s help in switching her suitemates’ room placements so that Peyton, a Black student, can share the double with Tyler while Kennedy, whom Tyler complains has too much stuff, moves to the single. Millie inspects the rooms and is overwhelmed by the volume of Kennedy’s belongings. She sits the residents down in the kitchen and talks to Kennedy about her things. Kennedy is embarrassed even after Millie tries to reframe her request as a discussion on needs and priorities. Tyler brings up her need for rest, Peyton identifies a clean and orderly kitchen as one of her needs, and Kennedy discusses her early morning class schedule. Millie uses her assessment of everyone’s stated needs to fulfill Tyler’s request.
Tyler privately thanks Millie later, passing along a 20-dollar bill as a sign of thanks from her mother. Afterward, Millie’s boss, Aimee, tells her about Agatha Paul’s interest in interviewing students at Belgrade and invites her to go for a ride to talk about another matter.
Chapter 4 Summary
Kennedy gets into the car with her mother, Nichelle, and breaks down. Nichelle tries to reassure her, but Kennedy finds it hard to shake off her suspicion that Tyler and Peyton conspired against her. Nichelle drives them away from the dormitory to buy an inspirational sign for Kennedy’s single and then helps to arrange the room when they get back.
After dinner, Kennedy reflects on her new life. She and her mom say goodbye to each other, and Kennedy goes back to her room, where Tyler mistakenly attributes the inspirational sign to a Talking Heads song that Kennedy has never heard.
The suitemates go to a welcome meeting. Tyler brings her friends, Jenna and Casey, back to the suite to hang out. Kennedy feels like she has failed to make a single friend on her first day. Just as she comes to doubt that Tyler and Peyton might ever become her friends, she overhears an amicable exchange between them. Kennedy goes to bed reading a book by Agatha Paul, whose work drew her to Arkansas.
Chapter 5 Summary
The narrative flashes back to 2014 when Agatha and her ex-partner, Robin, who is Black, meet at a colleague’s housewarming party in Chicago. When Robin sends Agatha an email to follow up on a conversation they’d had at the party, Agatha is anxious to know if Robin is flirting with her. When it becomes clear that she is flirting, Agatha turns to her friend, Jean, for advice and ultimately holds back a reply. A week later, she sees Robin again at an event, where Robin accuses Agatha of ignoring her. They leave together.
The two start dating. Agatha is deeply moved when she attends one of Robin’s dance performances, and Robin accompanies Agatha on the tour for her second book. Agatha largely takes care of their shared expenses and hopes that Robin might do the same when her financial situation stabilizes. But when Robin signs a lucrative contract to perform as a principal dancer, she splurges much of her earnings on personal lifestyle expenses, much to Agatha’s chagrin. Robin soon moves in with Agatha and becomes annoyed whenever Agatha shares morbid facts related to her writing work. These factors cause many arguments between them. They also frequently fight over Robin’s reckless use of an expensive knife set that Agatha had bought for herself.
Robin loses her job when her dance company closes down. Agatha is offered a position at the University of Arkansas, and Robin agrees to go with her. Shortly before they are scheduled to move, Robin invites Agatha to a dinner with white friends who have ties to Giordano Dance Chicago. During the dinner, Robin indicates that she won’t be moving to Arkansas with Agatha but will be based in Chicago, visiting from time to time. Upset with Robin, Agatha embarrasses Robin’s friend over an anecdote about visiting a gynecologist. When they get home, Robin and Agatha get into a fight that ends with them sleeping separately.
The following day, Robin learns that she has Crohn’s disease and later decides to forego moving to Arkansas so she can recover. Agatha offers to marry Robin so that her treatment can be covered by Agatha’s health insurance. Soon after their wedding, Agatha leaves alone for Fayetteville.
Chapters 1-5 Analysis
During the first five chapters of Come and Get It, Reid establishes the three central character perspectives through which the reader follows the events of the novel: Agatha, Millie, and Kennedy. Each one has a particular set of concerns that define their narrative trajectories while also coloring in the world of university residential life.
Agatha’s preoccupation with money is a driving factor in her early characterization, stemming from financial inequities in her previous relationship. As she interviews the three students, Agatha’s interest in weddings is quickly supplanted by an interest in student access to wealth. In Chapter 5, it is revealed that this fixation on money is partly tied to Agatha’s last long-term relationship. Throughout their time together, Robin’s careless attitude towards money is often the subject of Agatha’s ire. Agatha doesn’t mind being the provider in their relationship, yet she also seems to resent the way that Robin can easily divert her earnings to fulfill personal lifestyle needs, failing to plan for or contribute to their shared expenses. Whenever Robin recklessly uses Agatha’s valuable knife set in a way that degrades its quality, Agatha’s reaction signals a defense of her personal boundaries. She doesn’t want them to live inequitable lives, but she also doesn’t want Robin to take advantage of her either. The tension between them comes to a head when Robin claims that she will stay in Chicago while Agatha moves to Arkansas. Robin says this performatively to pique the interest of her friends who may be able to secure her a job. However, that performative action resonates with Agatha’s interpretation of her financial indulgence: Agatha feels that Robin’s expenses are all for show. She is uncertain if Robin can be serious around her, which follows her to the end of their relationship.
Millie, whose perspective is introduced next, is driven by a complex competition of priorities that hint at Crossing Personal and Professional Boundaries as a theme in the novel. Because Millie is a highly competent residential assistant, the path to her personal desire of becoming a homeowner seems clear. Though Aimee will introduce a concrete home opportunity in the following chapters, Millie is determined to pool her savings until she has enough to make a down payment and close a deal. Agatha and Tyler contribute to this effort in ways that introduce tension to her moral compass. After Agatha pays Millie, their conversation about the girls’ “fun money” foreshadows the possibility of future collaborations. She leverages the information for Agatha’s approval, showing that she can be useful to her on a transactional basis. Tyler reinforces this dynamic through her own interaction with Millie, albeit on murkier terms. Millie helps Tyler to switch her suitemates without the expectation of a reward. However, Tyler gives her money out of gratitude anyway, introducing ambiguity into the moral implications of accepting this money. When Millie sees Kennedy’s remorse and learns that Peyton is also Black, she becomes skeptical of Tyler’s motivations, unsure if Tyler is using all of them to advance her personal comfort over harmonious suite dynamics. This raises the question of whether Millie is actually an authoritative presence in the dormitory or if her authority can be abused to serve those who undermine her. By accepting Tyler’s money to fulfill her personal needs, Millie’s actions suggest that the latter may be true.
Finally, Kennedy’s character arc is marked by her sense of isolation and her fear of exclusion. When Millie hints at the overwhelming volume of her belongings, Kennedy’s first moments in the narrative become marked by her immediate remorse. Her first perspective chapter opens with her breaking down in her mother’s car, which helps to establish the closeness of their relationship. Nichelle is a doting mother whose affirmations position her closer to a friend than a parent. When Kennedy fails to make a friend on her first day at Belgrade, it becomes clear that she struggles in unfamiliar environments that don’t offer the warmth and openness she has with her mother. This introduces Navigating the Social Dynamics of Communal Living as a theme. Her first interactions with Peyton and Tyler cause her to be skeptical of them, believing that they have conspired to isolate her. Though she doesn’t communicate with them to clarify this, it sets the tone for their relationship as suitemates in the semester to come. Finally, the reader learns that Kennedy has an affinity for Agatha Paul’s work. The fact that she has come to Arkansas to study with her suggests that she may be looking to Agatha as a mentor to nurture her and help her develop through the collegiate stage of her life.
