A LIT HUB MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR





'A wild, wonderful essential novel'

Claire Lombardo, author of The Most Fun We Ever Had



'Will remind you why you fell in love with reading'

Oprah Daily, Best Book of Spring 2026



'Outrageously funny novel about hunger, desire, and the vulnerable'

Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here





During a French summer exchange programme in the late 90s, Jean embarked on an inappropriate relationship with her professor. Decades later Jean, now in her forties, is invited back to Europe by said professor for his retirement party... sending Jean into an emotional crisis.





In a desperate frenzy of guilt and regret, she finds herself praying to Monica Lewinsky for forgiveness. To Jean's shock, Saint Monica appears, and together they delve back into those sunlit, sexually charged six weeks in France.





Replete with Saint Monica's fiery insights into female martyrdom through the ages, this is a wise, funny, and wildly original examination of female desire, male power and the price women pay for giving in to their appetites.



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Rave reviews for Dear Monica Lewinsky



'Dear Monica Lewinsky is a miracle' Katy Hays, New York Times-bestselling author of Saltwater



'Langbein's prose is a sharp, witty meditation on female longing and male authority' Oprah Daily



'A wholly original feminist ode' Emily Habeck, author of Shark Heart



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Readers LOVE Dear Monica Lewinsky

'Nothing short of BRILLIANT' *****



'Sharp, witty, and unputdownable' *****

'Buzz books that's worth the hype' *****

'Wishing it would never end' *****

'Propulsive ' *****



Julia Langbein holds a doctorate in art history and is the author of the novels Dear Monica Lewinsky and American Mermaid as well as a monograph about press art and modernist painting (Laugh Lines: Caricaturing Painting in Nineteenth-Century France). She has written about food, art, and travel for Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Eater, Salon, Frieze, and other publications, and received a 2024 James Beard Foundation Journalism Award. A native of Chicago, she lives outside of Paris with her family.



Will remind you why you fell in love with reading ... Langbein's prose is a sharp, witty meditation on female longing and male authority



What a wild, wonderful essential novel this is. Julia Langbein has the uncanny ability to make a reader laugh out loud again and again while also laying bare - in her brilliant, singular way - the specific travail of being a young woman



An original, tender, and outrageously funny novel about hunger, desire, and the vulnerable (sometimes shameful) moments that make us, Dear Monica Lewinsky is a miracle. With incomparable tact and warmth, Julia Langbein achieves the impossible: balancing humor, consequence, and an irresistible ensemble of personalities against the glittering backdrop of a French summer. Comic novels with heft are the rarest stars in the literary firmament, and this one burns as brightly as the sun.



Dear Monica Lewinsky is a fascinating novel about the past, reckoning with the most elusive and unknown element: the person you once were and still somehow continue to be. It's incredible that Julia Langbein navigates this territory with such humor, as this is a truly funny book, but also manages to show tenderness without losing that essential bite of pain.



Hilarious, poignant, and exquisitely written, Dear Monica Lewinsky is a wholly original feminist ode. Langbein balances academic satire and emotional excavation, all with her signature wink. I'm obsessed with her mind.



A sharp-eyed, potent examination of sex and power dynamics between young women and older men