How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits
Written by Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline De Maigret and Sophie Mas
Narrated by Carrington MacDuffie
3.5/5
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Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this audiobook
From four stunning and accomplished French women -- at last -- a fresh and spirited take on what it really means to be a Parisienne: how they dress, entertain, have fun and attempt to behave themselves.
In short, frisky sections, these Parisian women give you their very original views on style, beauty, culture, attitude and men. The authors--Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, and Sophie Mas -- unmarried but attached, with children -- have been friends for years. Talented bohemian iconoclasts with careers in the worlds of music, film, fashion and publishing, they are untypically frank and outspoken as they debunk the myths about what it means to be a French woman today. Letting you in on their secrets and flaws, they also make fun of their complicated, often contradictory feelings and behavior. They admit to being snobs, a bit self-centered, unpredictable but not unreliable. Bossy and opinionated, they are also tender and romantic.
You will be taken on a first date, to a party, to some favorite haunts in Paris, to the countryside, and to one of their dinners at home with recipes even you could do -- but to be out with them is to be in for some mischief and surprises. They will tell you how to be mysterious and sensual, look natural, make your boyfriend jealous, and how they feel about children, weddings and going to the gym. And they will share their address book in Paris for where to go: At the End of the Night, for A Birthday, for a Smart Date, A Hangover, for Vintage Finds and much more.
How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are will make you laugh as you slip into their shoes to become bold and free and tap into your inner cool.
Editor's Note
La vie française...
Four stylish Parisian women join forces to let you in on all the secrets of “la vie française” - from the perfect wardrobe to parenting to lipstick to the art of conversation to taking a lover.
Anne Berest
Anne Berest’s first novel to appear in English, The Postcard (Europa, 2023), was a national indie bestseller, a Library Journal, NPR, and TIME Best Book of the Year, a Vogue Most Anticipated Book of the Year, and a finalist for the Goncourt Prize in France. It was described as “stunning” by Leslie Camhi in The New Yorker, as a “powerful literary work” by Julie Orringer in The New York Times Book Review, and as “intimate, profound, essential” in the pages of ELLE magazine. With her sister, Claire Berest, she is also the author of Gabriële (Europa, 2025), a critically acclaimed, best-selling “true novel” based on the life of her great-grandmother, Gabriële Buffet-Picabia, wife of Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp’s lover and muse, a leader of the French Resistance, and an art critic of considerable note. Berest lives in Paris with her family.
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Reviews for How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are
110 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Not so much as book as numerous lists upon lists of what Parisians do, don't do, live, eat, love, and work. Good advice to duplicate in your non-French home to make you feel a bit more chic. Rated three out of five since some of the content could have been generated from women's magazines or blogs and that it is, as I said, a giant book of lists.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Best for: Anyone who likes Paris, needs a bit of a quick, distracting read, and is willing to overlook the heteronormativity of it all.
In a nutshell: Four friends from Paris decided to write the type of advice book one might buy on impulse when shopping at Anthropologie.
Line that sticks with me: “darkest Africa” - used when referring to places where people might be from. I just … was a bit gobsmacked that this weird bit of racism made it past the editors.
Why I chose it: I’m pretty sure I bought it at a non-bookstore store because I’m a sucker for Paris and for advice.
Review: This book is fine. Yesterday my mind was not in a great place, and I just wanted something distracting. A book that talked about pretty clothes and a city I love and tips for making my hair looks good. And for the most part, this fit the bill.
It definitely assumes the reader is a woman who likes men, and it assumes that the reader has access to money. And is slender. But this is probably not a surprise, because the whole goal of the book seems to be to bring the stereotypes of Paris to life on the page. And they do, and mostly it just made me want to go out and find some jeans that actually fit and start wearing my red lipstick all the time. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5How to be relentlessly self-involved: Don't try so hard. Never notice your genetic gifts and your privilege. Never notice other people at all! If you mention Sartre that means you're deep and if you bring up cheating at a dinner party that means you're edgy. Compulsively readable but leaves a bad taste.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Not so much as book as numerous lists upon lists of what Parisians do, don't do, live, eat, love, and work. Good advice to duplicate in your non-French home to make you feel a bit more chic. Rated three out of five since some of the content could have been generated from women's magazines or blogs and that it is, as I said, a giant book of lists.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Simply lovely practical advice on how to become more of a Parisienne. A bit cold and certainly suicide for relationships if followed to a tee, but lovely ideas
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This book was delightful and funny...I got a look inside the workings of a Parisian plus it inspired my wardrobe
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Fairly amusing book, but doesn't offer anything really new if the reader has more than a passing knowledge of Paris. Strictly for ages 22 - 35
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Amusing, but a bit too cliche. It often makes Parisian women should like self-absorbed, cheating jerks, which is not the case.