| Killing Monica | |
| Border: | yes |
| Author: | Candace Bushnell |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | Relationship with pop-culture |
| Genre: | Chick-lit |
| Publisher: | Grand Central Publishing |
| Release Date: | June 23, 2015 |
| Media Type: | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages: | 311 (first edition) |
| Isbn: | 978-0-446-55790-0 |
| Oclc: | 1108718336 |
| Dewey: | 813/.54 |
| Congress: | PS3552.U8229 K55 2015 |
| Preceded By: | Summer and the City (2011) |
| Followed By: | Is There Still Sex in the City? (2019) |
Killing Monica is a novel written by American author Candace Bushnell. It was first released as a hardcover on June 23, 2015. Bushnell's publisher, the Hachette Book Group, describes its central character, Pandy "PJ" Wallis, as "a renowned writer whose novels about a young woman making her way in Manhattan have spawned a series of blockbuster films."[1]
A champagne-drinking New York novelist named Pandy Wallis has found success through writing a series of books about her alter ego, Monica. The books have been adapted into films starring an actress named Sondra-Beth Schnowzer. Now, newly divorced, Pandy wants to write serious fiction about one of her ancestors instead. The plot of the novel combines flashbacks of her friendship with Sondra-Beth and failed marriage, with her quest to kill off her character Monica.
The book was "critically reviled", according to New York Magazine.[2] "The prose is both hyperbolic and repetitive," wrote Eliza Kennedy in The New York Times Book Review. "Characters never speak when they can screech, shriek or scream." Kennedy concluded: "The entire thing is capped by a cheap revelation that's supposed to make readers think, but only made this reader cringe."[3]
Writing in The Washington Post, Bethanne Patrick called it "a sloppy story that doesn't hold together."[4] In The Independent, Arifa Akbar said: "None of it, including the final, unconvincing plot twist, is particularly well-written."[5] In the New York Daily News, Sherryl Connelly called Killing Monica[6] "an unfunny farce" and "a book of bad taste."[7] It also received negative reviews from Kirkus Reviews,[8] Kirsty McLuckie in The Scotsman,[9] Georgie Binks in the Toronto Star.[10] and Publishers Weekly.[11]