Molka by Monika Kim

Molka took me a while to get into, and at no point did I struggle to set it down, but I also never landed on disliking it. That puts it in a middle zone that is harder to write about than love or hate, so I’m going to try to work out why the book kept me at arm’s length for so long and why the ending still managed to win me over.

What Molka Is About

The novel is set in Seoul and runs on two tracks. Junyoung is an IT worker whose job gives him access to the entire network of the office building where he works, and he uses that access to run hidden cameras in the women’s restrooms. Dahye is a financial analyst on one of the floors he monitors, living in the shadow of an older sister who died years ago and dating Hyukjoon, the son of a powerful family. When a sex tape of the couple surfaces in a molka chatroom, Dahye’s relationship and her standing with her family fall apart, and her grief over her sister starts to bleed into her days in strange ways. Junyoung’s interest in her, meanwhile, curdles into obsession. The title refers to the Korean term for illegally installed spy cameras, and the author’s note frames the practice as a real epidemic in South Korea.

The Slow Start

The opening stretch of Molka asks for patience. Monika Kim has a lot to establish, including Junyoung’s habits, Dahye’s relationship with Hyukjoon, and her history with her sister, and for a good while those threads run alongside each other without much pressure building between them. I read steadily but never felt the pull to stay up and find out what happened next, which is the main reason this review isn’t more enthusiastic. Nothing in the early chapters bored me enough to quit, yet I was reading out of commitment more than urgency, and I think that’s a fair description of how the first half felt.

Why It Was Hard to Relate To

Part of my distance from the book comes down to where I live. Hidden camera scandals do come up in the news now and then, but they aren’t a constant presence in my daily awareness, so I read Molka more like a story about a faraway problem than a story about a fear I carry. Psychologists talk about psychological distance, the idea that we react more strongly to threats that feel close to us in place, time, or social circle, and I think that explains a lot of my reaction here. The novel treats the molka epidemic as a constant, ordinary dread, and I could understand that intellectually without feeling it in my gut. I don’t think that’s a flaw in the book so much as a limit of my own vantage point, but it did change how much the premise landed for me.

The power dynamics are easier to grasp even from a distance. Junyoung spends his days collecting footage of women who think they are alone, and the book makes clear that the cameras are about control as much as desire. Watching without being seen lets him feel powerful over people who barely notice him. Dahye’s side of the story shows the opposite end of that arrangement, where the public humiliation of the leaked video becomes a punishment that falls on her while the man beside her slips away. The way shame gets assigned to the wrong person is the most psychologically convincing part of Molka, and it’s the part that stuck with me even when the plot wasn’t pulling me forward.

The Ending

The back third of Molka moves much faster than the front. Once the two storylines collide, things escalate quickly, and the revenge plot that the book has been building toward finally gets to happen. I won’t spoil how, but I will say it was gratifying. After spending so long with a protagonist who is humiliated, abandoned, and judged for something done to her, watching the book hand her some agency felt earned, and the speed of the climax almost reads like the novel making up for its slower pacing earlier on. I would have liked some of that momentum to show up sooner, since the ending made me realize how much more engaged I was when the story was actually moving.

Who Should Read Molka

I’d recommend Molka to readers who like dark revenge stories and feminist horror, and who don’t mind a book that takes its time before delivering. It’s also worth knowing going in that the subject matter involves voyeurism and sexual content, so it won’t suit everyone. If you want a fast thriller from the first chapter, this probably isn’t the one, and it isn’t a book I’d tell people to go out of their way to find. But if you can get through the slower opening, the payoff makes the effort feel worthwhile.