![]() Hardcover edition | |
Author | Candace Bushnell |
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Language | English |
Subject | Relationship with pop-culture |
Genre | Chick-lit |
Publisher | Grand Central Publishing |
Publication date | June 23, 2015 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardcover) |
Pages | 311 (first edition) |
ISBN | 978-0-446-55790-0 |
OCLC | 1108718336 |
813/.54 | |
LC Class | 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]