Do you recall the absolute horror of being on the verge of everything? It’s that fluffy little stage of life – let’s say 18 to 26-years-old – where identity is an enigma, a haunted house, a room full of mirrors with no escape hatch. And all the insecurities you have ever known bubble on up like the mammals in the Chicago River (IYKYK).

Or was that just me?

A book that opens with the fiery tales of Monica Lewinsky’s public bloodbath and her entering the sainthood as a woman who survived it all — with poise, grace, and a fucking crown. We are introduced to Jean at 40-years-old, on the cusp of everything and nothing. Turns out there is something so stale living within her that colors her world millennial gray bleak.

But when Saint Monica Lewinsky is called upon, we meet Jean at 19 on a trip to France to study abroad. There also is David. David is a 40-something professor helping guide the grad students and two undergrad students on this hyper-specific trip involving church history and architecture. (I will defer to the book to explain that.) We readers live inside the ramblings of Jean’s mind. A place I was sad to leave, actually.

Her thoughts were waves of hilarity, insanity (I would often whisper to myself, “What a psycho!”), and often strangely horny and egotistical. I found Jean to be oddly relatable at that age. And what became of her longing desires to be with David – this just-out-of-reach, British man. As you can imagine, it doesn’t end well for Jean. David, like any cis, white male, continues to lead a fine and fair life.

We encounter the Jean who had something die in her the day David took both her virginity and then gave her a “C” on her paper (while her peer earned an “A”), and slowly cropped her out of any meaningful academic life. It might feel like I’m ruining this for you, but I want to promise that I’m not. You have to read this book to get the stunningly painted portrait of Jean and her mind.

I related so much to Jean because of how alone she felt. I told my (newly-minted) therapist this week that I felt very alone growing up. I lived in the depths of my mind so often, only really finding refuge in a physical or online journal. It’s like I could taste Jean’s words. Then, when I hear how she is taken advantage of and feels so much defeat — like the loneliness won — I think of my own shortcomings with this, too. I feel for and with her, and champion her, too.

Dear Monica Lewinsky felt more like a memoir than a work of fiction. So many young girls, with feelings so big with nowhere to properly put them, can become victims so easily. This is not so unlike the memoir by Amy Griffin in The Tell (Note: this memoir is actually under a lot of scrutiny right now.).

Each time I read something like this, I do feel a heightened sense of self. Like some large, cave dwelling creature wakes up, making me feel a bit heavy and clunky. I begin asking myself what doesn’t feel fully healed? Sometimes it feels like standing on a turtles back, chasing closure.

Jean found her closure some twenty-years later. I hope I can, too.

xo