by Kiley Reid
First published 2025
Millie Cousins has clear goals as she finishes her extended stay at the University of Arkansas in 2017. The resident assistant at Belgrade Dormitory wants to graduate, land a job, and purchase her own house. When visiting professor and writer Agatha Paul approaches her with an unusual proposition that benefits them both, Millie accepts the arrangement. The deal seems straightforward enough until complications arise. A transfer student struggling with loneliness creates new challenges. The dormitory residents become increasingly difficult to manage. Illicit activities threaten to derail everything Millie has worked toward. As problems multiply, both women face difficult choices about what they are willing to sacrifice to achieve their ambitions. The arrangement that once seemed mutually beneficial now forces each to examine how much of herself she will give up for what she wants most.
Genres: drama, literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction
Vibes: character-driven, intimate, morally-complex, tense, thought-provoking
Tropes: consequences-of-choices, morally-gray-characters, transactional-relationship
Setting: University of Arkansas, Belgrade Dormitory
Period: 2017
416 pages · Paperback · G.P. Putnam's Sons
Content warnings: substance-abuse, toxic-relationship