Molka - Monika Kim
A review of Monika Kim’s novel about voyeurism, institutional tolerance, and ordinary cruelty.
288 pages · Kindle edition · Kensington Publishing, April 2026
Direct Without Depth
Molka is a brief, efficient novel. The prose is spare. The pacing is tight. It moves quickly and does not linger, preferring forward motion to accumulation.
The material is abrasive, yet the handling is literal. Kim favours statement over implication. Scenes are presented head-on, with little ambiguity about what they are meant to show. The social critique arrives early and remains fixed in place, which gives the book clarity and momentum but limits its capacity to develop or complicate its ideas.
Voyeurism sits at the centre of the novel, though it is treated less as pathology than as habit. Looking becomes routine, exposure ordinary. What unsettles is not the act itself but the way it is absorbed into everyday behaviour and quietly tolerated by institutions that benefit from not naming it. The book’s unease comes from this normalisation rather than from any escalation of threat.
Despite its horror billing, Molka reads more convincingly as a social thriller. The tension is procedural and environmental, produced by proximity, silence, and collective indifference. The supernatural elements hover at the edges but never quite take hold, functioning more as atmosphere than engine.
Molka is unsettling without being demanding, direct without much depth. It does not ask much of the reader beyond attention, and it does not stay longer than necessary. A serviceable, enjoyable palate cleanser.
★★★
Advance reading copy provided by NetGalley and Kensington Publishing.