Mona Awad was born in Montreal. Her debut novel, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl (February 2016), was the Winner of the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, Finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and for the Colorado Book Award for Literary Fiction, and Longlisted for the 2017 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Learn more about the author and her book hereafter.
Mona Awad has lived in the U.S. on and off since 2003.
A graduate of York University in Toronto, she received her MFA in Fiction from Brown University and her MScR in English literature from the University of Edinburgh, where she wrote her dissertation on fear and the fairy tale, graduating with Distinction. Her writing has appeared in McSweeney’s, The Walrus, Joyland, Post Road, St. Petersburg Review, and elsewhere.
She has worked as an instructor in the Literary Arts department at Brown University and as a bookseller for various independent bookstores. She has also worked as a freelance journalist and a food columnist for the Montreal-based magazine Maisonneuve; her essay “The Shrinking Woman,” which appeared in that magazine, was a finalist for a Canadian National Magazine Award. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Creative Writing and English literature at the University of Denver, where her thesis project will be a novel.
In her brilliant, hilarious, and at times shocking debut, Mona Awad simultaneously skewers the body image-obsessed culture that tells women they have no value outside their physical appearance, and delivers a tender and moving depiction of a lovably difficult young woman whose life is hijacked by her struggle to conform.
As caustically funny as it is heartbreaking, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl introduces a vital new voice in fiction.
Synopsis:
Named one of the best books of the year by NPR, The Atlantic, Time Out New York, and The Globe and Mail
Growing up in the suburban hell of Misery Saga (a.k.a. Mississauga), Lizzie has never liked the way she looks—even though her best friend Mel says she’s the pretty one. She starts dating guys online, but she’s afraid to send pictures, even when her skinny friend China does her makeup: she knows no one would want her if they could really see her. So she starts to lose. With punishing drive, she counts almonds consumed, miles logged, pounds dropped. She fights her way into coveted dresses. She grows up and gets thin, navigating double-edged validation from her mother, her friends, her husband, her reflection in the mirror. But no matter how much she loses, will she ever see herself as anything other than a fat girl?
NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2016 BY ELLE, BUSTLE, AND THE GLOBE AND MAIL
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE MONTH BY THE HUFFINGTON POST, BUSTLE AND BOOKRIOT
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This book is about the experience of a woman trying to meet the expectations of the society in terms of weight-related image and the influence all that has on her self-esteem. It’s a perfect reading to understand better the dilemma that most of the women are faced with in their everyday life. Even if the story will make you angry or sad sometimes, it will also make you laugh. It’s very well written. I think you should read it.