“Molka” by Monika Kim: Peeping Tom Finds Femme Fatale (BOOK REVIEW)

Peeping Tom Finds Femme Fatale

Hey, Alex! What have you been reading lately?

I’ve been having an eye on Monika Kim for a while, even though Molka is the first of her books I read. It had been sitting on my TBR since last October because the plot sounded too good to miss out: fast-paced Seoul, spy cameras, sexual assault, women taking justice into their own hands. Yes. Immediate yes.

Big thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy, because this was exactly the kind of dramatic, morally messy thriller I didn’t know I was in the mood for.

Tell me more. What is the book about?

Junyoung is an office worker who installs molkas (hidden cameras) in the women’s bathrooms for his own private surveillance. He becomes obsessed with Dahye, a colleague from another department, and starts building fantasies around her from a distance.

Dahye is caught up in a heated affair with Hyukjoon, a silver spoon that is more interested in using her body than respecting her as a person. Things spiral when a non-consensual sex tape leaks online and Hyukjoon disappears, leaving Dahye to face the fallout alone.

Rumours spread. Shame grows. Junyoung notices Dahye stops coming to work and begins stalking her. From there the novel moves into revenge, paranoia, exposure, and the ugly truth of how men and women are treated differently when it comes to violence and boundaries.

What are some strong and weak points of the book?

What I found most interesting was the voyeuristic dynamic of reading Molka. I was reading about voyeurs while becoming one myself. I was actively watching the watcher. This made me feel like I entered this sort of virtual reality, metafictional universe where I was a silent character within the story.

From that, a strange tension began to form inside me. Part of me wanted Junyoung to be exposed. Another wanted the chaos to continue because if he got caught too early, the story would end and there would be nothing left to read about. It’s uncomfortable, but brilliantly effective.

The pace is another huge strength of Kim’s writing. Molka moves lengths. There are constant inciting incidents, escalating disasters, bad decisions, and characters spiralling in real time. It genuinely kept me reading because I needed to know how much worse things could possibly get.

The characters are also entertainingly unhinged. Having recently read Holy Boy where everyone felt wildly overdramatic, I realised that Molka is giving me a similar energy – except here it works well. It is like watching a K-drama collapse into a feminist thriller and then swerve into dark comedy.

There are some loose ends. Eunhye, Dahye’s dead sister who returns in spectral form to aid her revenge, has her own unfinished story that never gets resolved. Then there are the protesters who don’t add much to the story and could have been cut off.

Dahye kicks off as a compelling protagonist, especially in the aftermath of the leaked tape, but her paranoia became a bit much for me. To be honest, I tried to feel for her, but I could often not empathise with her choices. Watching her continue to defend a man like Hyukjoon after everything was mad. All three leads are astonishingly delusional when it comes to love and desire. And that is coming from me!!!

However, I also think Molka operates on a heightened, almost absurd level on purpose. The exaggeration sharpens the social critique. By pushing situations to extremes, Kim exposes how ridiculous and cruel society can be when men and women commit similar criminal acts but receive different reactions.

Any final thoughts? Should I read it too?

Molka might not appeal to you if you are searching for a mind-boggling suspense full of hidden clues and plot twists. But if you are happy with a chaotic and hilarious story packed with obsession, surveillance, hypocrisy, revenge, ghosts, and chopping certain body parts off, then absolutely.

Molka is one of those books that I disagreed with plenty and rolled my eyes at often, yet I could not stop devouring. That, to me, is its own kind of success.

Monika Kim understands that outrage and entertainment can coexist and demonstrates it through her book brilliantly. She wants to provoke you, frustrate you, and keep you hooked all at once. Prepare yourself to be shocked, amused, annoyed, and lost for words. Like any proper drama does to you.

Thank you so much!! Are there any similar books that you can recommend?

🚆 The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins – an unreliable commuter becomes entangled in a missing persons case after witnessing something suspicious in her ex husband’s home.

💉 My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite – a woman repeatedly helps her sister clean up after murdering her boyfriends, until the next target becomes someone she likes herself.

📲 limaistyping…

rating: ☀️☀️☀️☀️
tropes: 🫶 love triangle | 💌 unrequited feelings | 🏆 reclaiming power | 🔪 revenge story | 💸 poor vs rich
read if you like: K-dramas, spying on others, ghosts, Joan of Arc, delusional characters
look out for: 🎥 hidden cameras | 👗 the perfect date dress | 🌱 a grower, not a shower | 🩸 cleavers | 💦 the leak in the bathroom
Reading this feels like I am rewatching all 3 seasons of Penthouse (iykyk) with the only difference that everyone now is horny.