[5] Her second novel, God Don't Like Ugly, was published in 2000 by Kensington Books, and in 2001 won a PEN Oakland Award for Best Fiction of the Year.
A successful author and mother of two children, Monroe currently resides in Oakland, where she continues to write bestselling novels.
[6] [1] Some believe by using an innocent young girl's voice, Monroe provides a hopeful tone for a dark sequence of events.
[11] Some critics think the narration by Patricia Floyd provides a different outlook on the characters, who just from their actions are made to seem greedy, ignorant, or any other number of off-putting adjectives.
[12] A critical review is that Monroe uses humor to add new dimensions to the lives of ordinary people, making them seem interesting to readers.