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.
Character Analysis
Millie Cousins
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses a relationship with an imbalanced power dynamic and accidental animal death.
Millie Cousins is the protagonist and one of three close perspective characters in Come and Get It. Born and raised an only child in Joplin, Missouri, to Richard and Glory Cousins, Millie is a Black senior student in hospitality management at the University of Arkansas. Her proactive work ethic stems from her childhood and early teen years when her mother encouraged her to do as much as she could with her spare time. She joins many clubs and extracurriculars as a child and starts leading them by the time she reaches high school. Her industrious nature leads her to take a gap year before she starts university, working at a bed-and-breakfast in Arkansas to qualify for in-state tuition. As a college sophomore, she is invited to become a resident assistant at the university, twice being assigned to Belgrade Dormitory.
When the novel begins, Millie is embarking on her second attempt at senior year. She took the previous year off after her mother was diagnosed with glaucoma. Millie moved back to Joplin to care for her, filling her free hours with a job as a barista at the local Barnes & Noble Starbucks. Watching home improvement shows with her mother, Millie develops the aspiration to become a homeowner in Fayetteville. From then on, she becomes focused on taking every opportunity to build her savings towards a down payment. She goes full-time with her barista role, and when her mother prompts her to finish her studies, she continues working as a resident assistant.
Millie is, for the most part, a dynamic character. However, her character progression is somewhat regressive. She begins the novel as a competent residential assistant. She is diligent in completing her inspection rounds and in planning and setting up room decorations. She is quick to accommodate Tyler’s concerns when she expresses the need to switch rooms, even using this as an opportunity to communicate boundaries among the suitemates by having them identify their residential priorities. However, as the semester goes on, particularly with the presence of Agatha Paul, her sense of initiative begins to falter. She is not particularly helpful when she gives Peyton the idea to leave Kennedy’s dirty dishes in her room, and even when she sees Peyton on her way to do it, she does not consider what is happening and intervene.
She only realizes her errors at the end of the novel after she and Agatha end their relationship, and Agatha leaves town. Realizing that Kennedy experienced a terrible semester at Belgrade, Millie reflects on one moment that seems to define her internal change: the way she had passively reacted when she learned that Kennedy had been rejected for Agatha’s writing workshop. She realizes that she has missed an opportunity to be a better resident assistant. This fills her with regret over the turn her character has taken by the end of the novel. However, that regret is also what characterizes her maturity, especially as she comes to possess the house she has wanted from the start.
Kennedy Washburn
Kennedy Washburn is the second of three perspective characters in Come and Get It, functioning as a secondary protagonist. Kennedy is not directly involved in the novel’s central conflict, which sees Millie and Agatha navigating their arrangement to eavesdrop on three residents at Belgrade Dormitory. However, she exists on the periphery of that conflict, leverages information to progress its escalation, and undergoes a personal journey of her own.
Kennedy is a junior student at the University of Arkansas, having transferred from the University of Iowa after being ostracized by her academic community. Kennedy’s departure from Iowa is precipitated by her role in the accidental death of Sadie, a beloved dog in her immediate group of peers. Though Kennedy later realizes she could have taken responsibility for her actions, she is too shocked to own up to it and leaves the dead Sadie behind. What brings her to Fayetteville is her connection to Agatha Paul, whose work she reads to process her grief. Encouraged by a writing teacher at Iowa, she believes that if she can learn how to articulate her experience the way Agatha does, then she can fully escape her trauma. Life at the University of Arkansas fails to align with her expectations as she immediately feels ostracized by her suitemates, particularly Tyler, whose sole aspiration in college is to have a dog. Later, Kennedy also finds out that her application to Agatha Paul’s advanced nonfiction workshop is rejected, which causes her to spiral.
Kennedy’s decision to avoid taking responsibility and leave Sadie behind resonates with her behavior at Belgrade Dormitory. A conflict develops between her and her suitemate, Peyton, when Kennedy repeatedly fails to wash her dirty dishes despite Peyton’s repeated reminders. Although Kennedy sees her suitemate’s request as an annoyance, Peyton is speaking out of her need for a clean kitchen. After Peyton leaves Kennedy’s dishes on her bed, Kennedy confronts her and argues that she could have left it anywhere else in the room. However, it also becomes clear that Kennedy’s neglect extends to the maintenance of her room. Part of this neglect is attributed to the close relationship that Kennedy has with her mother, who dotes on her. Kennedy’s relationship with her mother is the closest thing she has to a friendship throughout the entire novel, which prevents her from seeing how adult friendships are often fraught with complications.
At the end of the novel, Kennedy is surprised to receive attention from many of the people who shunned her. Her story closes on the note of her developing maturity when her mother tells her that a plastic surgeon can examine her scar, and she declines the offer. This signifies that rather than hide the sign of her trauma, she would rather keep it as a visible reminder of what she has experienced and learned.
Agatha Paul
Agatha Paul is the third perspective character of Come and Get It, functioning as a romantic interest for Millie. Agatha’s narrative function is supported by her static character arc. For her, life in Fayetteville is a transitory phase, one that she must go through to get over her breakup with her ex-partner Robin, as well as to progress in her writing career. By the end of the novel, she is no closer to any of the things she has aspired to, and even though she briefly reunites with Robin, Agatha is the one who calls for a break in their relationship just as Robin is calling her out on her relationship with Millie. She uses her last moments in Fayetteville to reverse the damage she has caused to Millie’s life and career, ensuring that Millie can make the down payment on her house and keep her job in university accommodations.
Agatha is a journalist who has written two books, one on grief through the lens of funerals and the other about birthdays. She writes the former book, Satellite Grief, after she is accidentally involved in the death of an old man crossing the street. She uses her journalistic skills to interview others who have been involved in similar incidents, allowing her to process her grief. When the novel begins, her desire to write about weddings seems to stem from similar circumstances, having just married Robin shortly after their breakup so that Robin could access Agatha’s health insurance. When she interviews Tyler and her friends, however, her curiosity and repulsion towards them compels her to learn more about their relationship with money. When she starts writing her Teen Vogue profiles, she uses portions of their interview, as well as quotes from her eavesdropping sessions in Millie’s room, without informing the three girls about the nature of her piece. She uses the discrete nature of her endeavor to also fictionalize certain gaps in her profile, indicating to her editors that she is directly in contact with the girls.
Agatha’s relationship with Millie is impacted by her lack of professional diligence. Though Agatha justifies that Millie has given her consent to use some of her quotes for material, Millie is only aware of Agatha’s book project, not her short-form Teen Vogue writing work.
