The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Louis, Édouard. A Woman's Battles and Transformations. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.

Édouard Louis's novel A Woman's Battles and Transformations is written from the first person point of view of the main character Eddy. Throughout the majority of the novel, Eddy is attempting to piece the fragments of his mother's life and past back together. The narrative is written in a fragmented form and employs both the past and present tenses. The following summary relies upon the present tense and abides by a more linear, streamlined mode of explanation.

When Monique is a teenager, she starts pursuing a culinary career at a local hospitality school in northern France. Only a year into the program, Monique becomes pregnant. She is just 17 years old. Her boyfriend urges her to keep the child. The two then get married and move in together. Monique is thus forced to let go of her culinary dreams. She becomes a stay-at-home mother and has a second child not long after her first. Her husband soon proves to be an abusive drunk. He makes life so miserable and unbearable for Monique that she decides to leave him.

At just 23, Monique is living with her sister in public housing, with two children, no job, no license, and no one to help her financially or otherwise. The only way for Monique to conceivably change her life is to find another man. Only a few months later, she meets someone new. She falls in love with him. They move in together, marry, and have their first child: Eddy.

When Eddy is still young, his mother gets pregnant with twins. Because he is a child, Eddy does not fully understand the gravity of his mother's situation. She is desperate to abort the babies. Her second husband is also an abusive alcoholic. He has recently lost his job because of a workplace injury. Monique is terrified that two more children will ruin the family monetarily. Despite her concerns, her husband refuses to let her have the abortion. Although she often delights over the twins' beauty when they are growing up, their birth does compromise the family financially.

Over the course of Eddy's childhood, he becomes increasingly affected by his parents' marital dysfunction. His mother is constantly unhappy. His father is constantly disengaged. He is also abusive to Monique, who struggles to know how to survive her entrapping circumstances.

Eddy finally leaves home to attend high school in the city, Amiens. As soon as he leaves his village, he realizes how much life beyond his childhood has to offer. He has entered a new social sphere and is eager to be accepted by his more educated and monied peers. He starts changing his manner of speech, dress, and behavior accordingly.

The longer Eddy lives away from the village, the more perspective he gains on his mother's life. He suddenly realizes all of the violence that she has suffered throughout her young life. He starts encouraging Monique to leave his father and to start her life over again. He is particularly affected when he finds a photo of Monique when she is 20. The image makes him realize that his mother was once young and once had dreams.

One night, Monique calls Eddy to announce that she has finally left his father. Eddy is thrilled for her. Over the course of the months following, Monique continues making changes in her life. She moves, finds work, and meets a new man. Not long later, she relocates to Paris to live with her new partner.

Eddy is also living in Paris. He and his mother start to reconcile and rebuild their relationship. He is moved by how much she has changed. Although she is still the victim of class- and sex-based disadvantages, Monique is happier than Eddy has ever seen her.