Un monde plus sale que moi is the novel of the #MeToo girls, the ones who were 17 in 2017, who read the pigs’ stories and thought “it’s none of my business”, the ones the fourth feminist wave is supposed to have saved, the ones we tell ourselves were born late enough, into a world progressive enough that nothing could happen to them, the ones who are actually no more protected than their elders from men’s violence.
This is the story of all the girls who are not talked about, because what happens to them is not perceived as serious enough to deserve hashtags, because #MeToo has already happened. The story of the moment they realized that the pigs had never gone away, and that they had become their prey.
This is the story of Elsa, who believes she was born for love, expects only that, wants only that, to the point of falling into the arms of the first person who comes along, and swallowing anything, because that’s what love is, it’s a bit rough too, and if it doesn’t always happen the way she dreamed it would, it’s probably because she expected too much. In any case, it is well known that girls are always in pain.
This is the novel of an era—ours—that puts burning words on reality, with a blood-curdling pragmatism and a sharp cynicism.