Title: Molka

Author: Monika Kim

Release Date: April 30^th, 2026

Link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FKX1VN4X/

Summary

From the award-winning author of The Eyes Are the Best Part, praised by The New York Times Book Review as “violent, smart, gruesome and wildly original,” a provocative journey into a perilous world of voyeurism, scandal, female rage, and vengeance . . . pursued with a very sharp kitchen knife.

Molka: an abbreviation of molrae-kamera, a “sneaky camera” hidden to capture covert images and videos for voyeurs.

In an unassuming Seoul workplace, IT technician Junyoung’s network reaches throughout the entire building. He sees every entrance. Every lobby. Every bathroom. The women in this building may be cold and dismissive, but he can always pull up his favorite images of them and remember who holds the real power. Until one, Dahye, sets herself apart from the rest.

Dahye, ever the romantic, yearns to be cherished after years of living in the shadow of her perfect older sister, who tragically drowned years ago. Only her boyfriend seems to appreciate Dahye. He’s rich, handsome, and generous—and she’d do anything to hold on to the happiness he brings her.

But when a hidden camera scandal rocks the city’s elites, Dahye’s dreams of a fairy-tale romance twist into a grotesque nightmare. Her boyfriend abandons her. Her parents reject her. Her grip on reality begins to shatter as visions of her dead sister suddenly appear.  And as Junyoung’s interest in Dahye turns to obsession, and the truths of their troubled lives are revealed, Dahye must go to extreme lengths to bring the truth to light . . .

My Review

5/5 Stars

What an absolutely brilliant, and infuriating, book.

Dahye has always lived an unassuming life. After the tragic death of her sister, she leans more into trying to life her life out to the fullest. That resolve leads her into a hot-and-cold entanglement with a billionaire bachelor. For a time, life feels intoxicating, almost dreamlike. Then everything collapses, spiraling into a dark, unsettling story of voyeurism, grief, and murder.

Molkas are such a dark, touchy subject not only in Korea, but across much of the world. As technology advances, it becomes alarmingly easy to hide cameras in hotel rooms, public restrooms, and changing areas. While this is undeniably a crime, it hasn’t stopped underground networks of men from producing, sharing, and consuming this footage.

The male characters, Junyoung and Hyukjoon, are written in a way that underscores a chilling truth: the “usual suspects” are not always the ones at the center of molka scandals. One of the novel’s greatest strengths is how clearly it exposes the starkly different ways men and women are treated in these situations—by society and by law enforcement alike.

“When men do things to hurt us—post our naked bodies online without our consent, rape us, whatever—they shrug their shoulders and look the other way.”

In far too many sexual assault cases, women are doubted or dismissed, and even when perpetrators are punished, the consequences are often laughably light. Meanwhile, women are labeled “radical,” “unstable,” or “crazy” simply for demanding justice.

“A common whore—was that all she was? Like her sister. Dahye had done everything in her power to make herself a woman of good standing. She had worked hard to get a degree from a good school. She had had a good job. She was careful not to get too drunk when she went out, and she didn’t sleep around. She had slept with only one other man before Hyukjoon—her college boyfriend—whom she had been certain she was going to marry. She let out a yelp, halfway between laughter and despair. In the end, none of it had mattered. She had done everything a supposedly respectable woman did, and still she had ended up the whore.”

This book is a relentless rollercoaster of female rage. I wish I could say it was a good for her type of book, but it reads a little too bittersweet for that. I really felt for Dahye. The ending left me devastated, yet it felt painfully honest because much like real life, happy endings are rare, and justice is never guaranteed.