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Monster
From the bestselling author of Drunk Mom and Possessed comes Monster, a mesmerizing, brave new work of autofiction. Monster is a shattering, feminist manifesto exploring sexual awakening, motherhood, immigrant trauma, and the power of female rage.
Yoveeta is angry. But her rage is quiet, internal, festering inside and forming a mysterious creation that she refers to as “Monster”, something that began as longing when she lost her first home, country, and language, and that kept on growing as she experienced sexual and romantic trauma. Her quest for home led her into a toxic relationship with Voytek, an older, former professor and accomplished Polish writer who fathered her daughter, Ruby, and who gave her a house that finally made her feel as if she landed somewhere safe. But their marriage was anything but safe, with Voytek’s penchant for infidelity and unrelenting gaslighting.
On the eve of launching her memoir about overcoming her eating disorder, Yoveeta meets a fascinating man her age, activating the dormant Monster who is viciously hungry for food, sex, and revenge, but most of all, Yoveeta’s own awakening.
As her relationship with her husband crumbles into separation, Yoveeta develops a new, motivating force to fight for her home and future. The invigorating new love gives her the courage to leave her toxic situation and come up with an ultimate and drastic solution, carried out with the help of her new accomplice.
Yoveeta is angry. But her rage is quiet, internal, festering inside and forming a mysterious creation that she refers to as “Monster”, something that began as longing when she lost her first home, country, and language, and that kept on growing as she experienced sexual and romantic trauma. Her quest for home led her into a toxic relationship with Voytek, an older, former professor and accomplished Polish writer who fathered her daughter, Ruby, and who gave her a house that finally made her feel as if she landed somewhere safe. But their marriage was anything but safe, with Voytek’s penchant for infidelity and unrelenting gaslighting.
On the eve of launching her memoir about overcoming her eating disorder, Yoveeta meets a fascinating man her age, activating the dormant Monster who is viciously hungry for food, sex, and revenge, but most of all, Yoveeta’s own awakening.
As her relationship with her husband crumbles into separation, Yoveeta develops a new, motivating force to fight for her home and future. The invigorating new love gives her the courage to leave her toxic situation and come up with an ultimate and drastic solution, carried out with the help of her new accomplice.
255 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2024
1 person is currently reading
152 people want to read
About the author
Jowita Bydlowska
13 books176 followersBorn in Poland, live in Canada, published some books.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 1, 2024
monster by jowita bydlowska is an evocative exploration of one woman exploring her immigrant and sexual trauma. throughout the novel, we see our main character explore forbidden love and thorough a relationship of sorts with a man outside her marriage as well as gaslighting.
this is not an easy read because our main character is so clearly in pain in almost every aspect of her life and had been taught to suppress her emotions virtually all her life.
as she begins to unpack her trauma and experiences, the writing and narration is unflinching in their rawness and honesty.
monster is 'female rage' at its core, but it's also so much more than that. it's made me think about how the experiences women go through are so often overlooked, how these kinds of books often go underappreciated because of the difficult subject matters they tackle.
what i especially loved about this is jowita's aftwerword where she highlights that she decided to call monster autofiction and give the main character her name because it's always just assumed that female authors write about their own experiences.
and while that is not always entirely true, are male authors asked the same questions about whether or not a book they've written is based on a personal experience? i really think there's a lot to think about here and why this assumption is so often put upon women and their novels.
long story short, read monster by jowita bydlowska.
this is not an easy read because our main character is so clearly in pain in almost every aspect of her life and had been taught to suppress her emotions virtually all her life.
as she begins to unpack her trauma and experiences, the writing and narration is unflinching in their rawness and honesty.
monster is 'female rage' at its core, but it's also so much more than that. it's made me think about how the experiences women go through are so often overlooked, how these kinds of books often go underappreciated because of the difficult subject matters they tackle.
what i especially loved about this is jowita's aftwerword where she highlights that she decided to call monster autofiction and give the main character her name because it's always just assumed that female authors write about their own experiences.
and while that is not always entirely true, are male authors asked the same questions about whether or not a book they've written is based on a personal experience? i really think there's a lot to think about here and why this assumption is so often put upon women and their novels.
long story short, read monster by jowita bydlowska.
Read
October 3, 2024First, this is autofiction, which is definitely not my favourite genre.
Second, she has already mined some of this territory in her non-fiction - particularly Drunk Mom.
This is another one where I liked it until I didn’t.
At the outset, the writing is propulsive, moving along quickly, pushing the reader to keep reading.
But then, as the marriage is really breaking down, we get pages and pages and pages - ad nauseum - of graphic depictions of sex every which way you can imagine it.
It is totally off-putting. I don’t care, and I definitely don’t want to read about it.
Then there is the whole ‘Monster’ thing as in the title.
I remember her preferred motif in Drunk Mom was that she was a ‘villain.’
I didn’t find that concept particularly well developed then, and I don’t find the ‘Monster’ concept well developed here either.
Ultimately I don’t really see the point of this.
Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me access to an early digital copy. Apologies for the delay in getting this post up.
DNF
Second, she has already mined some of this territory in her non-fiction - particularly Drunk Mom.
This is another one where I liked it until I didn’t.
At the outset, the writing is propulsive, moving along quickly, pushing the reader to keep reading.
But then, as the marriage is really breaking down, we get pages and pages and pages - ad nauseum - of graphic depictions of sex every which way you can imagine it.
It is totally off-putting. I don’t care, and I definitely don’t want to read about it.
Then there is the whole ‘Monster’ thing as in the title.
I remember her preferred motif in Drunk Mom was that she was a ‘villain.’
I didn’t find that concept particularly well developed then, and I don’t find the ‘Monster’ concept well developed here either.
Ultimately I don’t really see the point of this.
Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me access to an early digital copy. Apologies for the delay in getting this post up.
DNF
Read
March 3, 2025this might be how my diary would read
April 1, 2025
Jowita Bydlowska’s novel M()nster is muscular and direct and world-wearily erotic and delirious with discovery and tragically human, with a hint of body horror. The label ‘autofiction’ teases us to wonder which bits are true, but what does it matter when the writing is this powerful? And just look at that magnificent cover!
May 23, 2025
Dark and slithy. Bydlowska creates a modern fairy tale, deeply feminine, and unflinching.
February 7, 2025
Disclaimer- I don't usually read literary fiction. I was introduced to this book via social media, and I decided to abandon my usual historical fiction for this more....contemporary take on the world.
Oh, how I wish I had not.
I liked it all right .... oh, except for all the grammatical errors, run-on sentences, pages and pages of the unsexiest sex scenes I've ever read, and blatant promotion of eating disorders. However, there were several moments that frankly put me off.
There is a disgusting scene where she Unnecessary.
But what really gave me pause were several scenes regarding masks (this book is set during the pandemic of 2020) that were very off-putting and strange:
In one scene at the beginning, a woman we are meant to dislike is wearing a mask, while the protagonist and her friend are mask-free. We are definitely told to notice this! Well, moving on...
A few pages later, we see that a child is wearing a mask that is dangling from her ear and "is stained yellow on the inside." I have never, ever seen this happen. It reminds me of how anti-mask people during 2020 would talk about how disgusting masks were and how quickly they turned yellow (which would not occur unless you were blowing your nose into it) and how they were the things making people sick, not the virus itself. So this inclusion of the mask having turned yellow was definitely again, a deliberate choice.
But we're not done yet. At another point in the novel, she describes how people were frantic from being caged up in their homes for so long, just going mad from a few weeks of lockdown. She describes it as though it is the worst thing that had ever happened to anyone. The direct quote - "So many people masked and still timid but on the brink of screaming from the pressure of having to restrain themselves for so long." Having to wear masks in public, indeed. Enough to make you scream and scream! Jowita, some people have real problems.
All of these little asides she included were CHOICES. And it feels off-putting, especially considering how cautious many publishers are about Covid-themed fiction (or auto fiction in this case). Choosing to set a book during this time and include these kinds of comments is essentially making a huge point of anti-mask sentiment. And given the direction that America is moving in -- for example, people commenting "We will not comply" and "You fooled us once, but not again" under recent articles about H5N1, for example -- this is truly not the time for baseless anti-mask sentiments. It's not just offensive, or embarrassing. It's dangerous.
Honestly, people's reactions to the pandemic have been so strange. Everyone seems to have their own grievances, ("I was so bored during lockdown that I was on the brink of screaming") and they act like they're completely justified in them—except for the people who actually lost loved ones or became chronically sick from it. Apparently, those people need to be quiet and get over it.
I have been on this planet somewhat longer than Jowita, and unlike her, I don't think my own grievances are the center of the universe. I did not suffer from lockdowns, because I do not get bored easily. I did not suffer from having to wear a mask, because I didn't resent having to wear one (and, unlike presumably Jowita, I had the foresight to switch them up before they turned yellow). I am old enough to realize that writing a quasi-memoir about a love affair (that probably did not actually end in real life the way it did in the novel) that glamorizes eating disorders and casual sex as self-harm, is more embarrassing than anything else. It is certainly not the manifesto Jowita seems to have wanted it to be.
Oh, how I wish I had not.
I liked it all right .... oh, except for all the grammatical errors, run-on sentences, pages and pages of the unsexiest sex scenes I've ever read, and blatant promotion of eating disorders. However, there were several moments that frankly put me off.
There is a disgusting scene where she Unnecessary.
But what really gave me pause were several scenes regarding masks (this book is set during the pandemic of 2020) that were very off-putting and strange:
In one scene at the beginning, a woman we are meant to dislike is wearing a mask, while the protagonist and her friend are mask-free. We are definitely told to notice this! Well, moving on...
A few pages later, we see that a child is wearing a mask that is dangling from her ear and "is stained yellow on the inside." I have never, ever seen this happen. It reminds me of how anti-mask people during 2020 would talk about how disgusting masks were and how quickly they turned yellow (which would not occur unless you were blowing your nose into it) and how they were the things making people sick, not the virus itself. So this inclusion of the mask having turned yellow was definitely again, a deliberate choice.
But we're not done yet. At another point in the novel, she describes how people were frantic from being caged up in their homes for so long, just going mad from a few weeks of lockdown. She describes it as though it is the worst thing that had ever happened to anyone. The direct quote - "So many people masked and still timid but on the brink of screaming from the pressure of having to restrain themselves for so long." Having to wear masks in public, indeed. Enough to make you scream and scream! Jowita, some people have real problems.
All of these little asides she included were CHOICES. And it feels off-putting, especially considering how cautious many publishers are about Covid-themed fiction (or auto fiction in this case). Choosing to set a book during this time and include these kinds of comments is essentially making a huge point of anti-mask sentiment. And given the direction that America is moving in -- for example, people commenting "We will not comply" and "You fooled us once, but not again" under recent articles about H5N1, for example -- this is truly not the time for baseless anti-mask sentiments. It's not just offensive, or embarrassing. It's dangerous.
Honestly, people's reactions to the pandemic have been so strange. Everyone seems to have their own grievances, ("I was so bored during lockdown that I was on the brink of screaming") and they act like they're completely justified in them—except for the people who actually lost loved ones or became chronically sick from it. Apparently, those people need to be quiet and get over it.
I have been on this planet somewhat longer than Jowita, and unlike her, I don't think my own grievances are the center of the universe. I did not suffer from lockdowns, because I do not get bored easily. I did not suffer from having to wear a mask, because I didn't resent having to wear one (and, unlike presumably Jowita, I had the foresight to switch them up before they turned yellow). I am old enough to realize that writing a quasi-memoir about a love affair (that probably did not actually end in real life the way it did in the novel) that glamorizes eating disorders and casual sex as self-harm, is more embarrassing than anything else. It is certainly not the manifesto Jowita seems to have wanted it to be.
November 28, 2024
Few writers explore the dichotomy of power and vulnerability that goes along with sex as skillfully as Jowita Bydlowska. We see her protagonist stripped bare, seemingly subservient, while at the same time witnessing men at their weakest and neediest. Eroticism quickly turns to a kind of tristesse and the reader is left questioning the impulses of the characters as well as their own. There is a twisted fairytale-like feeling to parts of this book, the dark, desire-driven "monster" within the protagonist is like something out of Old World lore. And yet is feels so human, so relatable, in our digital era where so much seems to lack warmth and tangibility.
Bydlowska as a prose stylist turns the lowest points in a character's life into high art. She strips humans down to their biological essentials while somehow finding elements of spirit typically hidden in most novels. You don't read a novel like Monster, you experience it.
Bydlowska as a prose stylist turns the lowest points in a character's life into high art. She strips humans down to their biological essentials while somehow finding elements of spirit typically hidden in most novels. You don't read a novel like Monster, you experience it.
June 3, 2025
When I finished reading MONSTER from Jowita Bydlowska, I spent an awful lot of time thinking about serial killers. As someone who, like the narrator, was obsessed with serial killers and also had an eating disorder, I am now convinced there is a larger psychoanalytical connection that I am determined to explore.
And then of course, I had to answer another question posed by the narrator: What kind of murderer am I? Would I just snap, or would I plan it? (I feel like I'd really really want to get away with it, so I'd probably plan it, but for so long that I'd get distracted and move on to another compulsion).
This book contains a darkness that is difficult to turn away from. A Monster that needs to be fed with food, sex, alcohol, self-harm, self-loathing. A Monster that can only be killed with love.
With one of the most spectacular endings I've read in a while, MONSTER is an all too familiar story about the female body and what is inflicted upon it by men, society and the self.
And then of course, I had to answer another question posed by the narrator: What kind of murderer am I? Would I just snap, or would I plan it? (I feel like I'd really really want to get away with it, so I'd probably plan it, but for so long that I'd get distracted and move on to another compulsion).
This book contains a darkness that is difficult to turn away from. A Monster that needs to be fed with food, sex, alcohol, self-harm, self-loathing. A Monster that can only be killed with love.
With one of the most spectacular endings I've read in a while, MONSTER is an all too familiar story about the female body and what is inflicted upon it by men, society and the self.
January 28, 2025
This book! Wow. The fact that the author, and main character is a Polish Canadian (like me!) is what initially piqued my interest. The writing style blew me away. I have been craving such a poetically written, thought provoking novel for months. I will definitely be reading more by this talented author. Also - that ending! Damn!
November 22, 2024
Meh. The main character's name was supposed to be Yoveeta according to the back cover copy, so why is she referred to Jowita in the book many times? It's Yoveeta on one page, Jowita on the next! Is this just a sloppily edited memoir? Seems like it.
Also, she refers to her privates as "my girl hole" in a sex scene.
WHAT???
WHY????
Nobody needed to read that!!! 😭
Also, she refers to her privates as "my girl hole" in a sex scene.
WHAT???
WHY????
Nobody needed to read that!!! 😭
October 27, 2024
If someone is interested in the sexual adventures of a mentally ill woman, this book is for them. It didn't make any impression on me and I had a hard time reading it to the end.
November 14, 2024
Brilliant and raw - read it. The author is an artist, and without getting into spoilers, every page of this novel dances through darkness and light. A true talent.
November 14, 2024
Another book by JB that mines the darkness and troublesome parts of life. Provoking, and disturbing in some ways. Well written, and honest in ways that most books aren’t.
January 22, 2026
Move over Cohen’s Beautiful Losers! Brilliant erotica and so much more.
January 4, 2026
Monster is one of those books that made me deeply uncomfortable but I could not put it down because of the quality of the prose sizzling off the page. Bydlowska writes with a compelling urgency, openly confronting the assumption that women writers who confront female sexual desire MUST be writing auto fiction.
I like how the “monster” of the title is created from a woman’s appetites and desires born of the conflagration of marriage to an older and somewhat unavailable man, new motherhood, an eating disorder, immigrant status, and the artistic life. Rather than giving us weepy trauma, Bydlowska gives us anger. We don’t see enough female anger in fiction, and Bydlowska’s protagonist Yoveeta brings that in spades.
A memorable read.
I like how the “monster” of the title is created from a woman’s appetites and desires born of the conflagration of marriage to an older and somewhat unavailable man, new motherhood, an eating disorder, immigrant status, and the artistic life. Rather than giving us weepy trauma, Bydlowska gives us anger. We don’t see enough female anger in fiction, and Bydlowska’s protagonist Yoveeta brings that in spades.
A memorable read.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews