My (Part Time) Paris Life by Lisa Anselmo (Early Review)

My (Part Time) Paris Life by Lisa Anselmo (Early Review)



I really, really enjoyed this French memoir. After the death of Lisa’s mother, who she was very close to, she has a difficult time deciding how her life will look/be now that she is gone. Lisa ends up buying an apartment in Paris and splitting her time between there and New York, where she works for a magazine. Once she decided her life really needs a major overhaul, she quits her job to focus on freelance work and making herself happy.

This was a great story of self-discovery, but it didn’t “wow” me as much as I thought it would after reading the spectacular intro. She writes of realizing she had been waiting for others to give her permission to be happy and the way she writes it really connects you. I feel like I’ve been doing things like that in certain areas of my own life and I was excited to see what she had to say about it, but it seemed like she inserted a summary or resolution at the beginning of the book when it would have been much more fitting at the end. Despite this, I did enjoy the book. It is a wonderful story of the ups and downs of moving to the City of Light and settling into the person you are.

I definitely laughed out loud a few times when reading this book. My favorite is when she describes trying to have a conversation with Parisians – she says she hears something along the lines of, “I like the fawfaw faw. Faw faw.” Haha!

4/5 Stars

My (Part Time) Paris Life comes out on October 11th, 2016.
I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.