Zine Review: The Average and Different Days #5

I traded with Mnon for issue #5 of her perzine The Average and Different Days, which you can buy inexpensively on Etsy. She also sent me On the Verge of Summer, a diminutive one-pager. Mnon writes that her latest perzine installment “deals with the need to be creative, scary phone calls,” and miscellaneous components of a French college girl’s mental health. (English isn’t Mnon’s first language, but the errors are only minor grammar blips. Her writing is easy to understand.)

As you can see, The Average and Different Days is a traditional cut-and-paste typewritten zine. Pages are embellished with collage, illustration, and handwriting. Most of the text is Mnon’s charmingly candid reflections on her life. Also found within: a playlist, comparison of coffee versus tea, and plenty of references to Twin Peaks.

Mnon’s diary-style narrative conveys the stress of organizing an academic and professional future. She is open and honest about her struggle with anxiety, definitely willing to be vulnerable with strangers. I relate to Mnon’s description of the oddly stultifying panic that came with tackling a bureaucratic dilemma at her school (“scary phone calls”).

The zine’s subtext is that early adulthood involves growing pains, some provoked by obstacles that seem insurmountable. I would recommend The Average and Different Days #5 to angsty students and/or anyone who likes girly stuff (AKA exactly me).