-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A Memoir of Healing in the City of Light
by Robin Allison Davis
A deeply personal account of a young Black woman who set out to shake up her life by moving abroad but got a lot more than she bargained for.
Surviving Paris is not Emily in Paris. It's not a story of moving to the City of Light, meeting a dashing Frenchman, and raising beret-wearing enfants. It is not a romantic fantasy. It is a true story about a young, Black single woman and what happens when your Paris dream turns into a Paris nightmare.
After more than a decade as a journalist and television producer, Robin Allison Davis decided to shake up her life and move to France. But it wasn't quite the life she expected. When she was just thirty-four, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Surviving Paris recounts her journey from diagnosis through multiple surgeries to surviving the strictest Covid-19 lockdowns, only to be told her cancer had come back—and how she got to finding herself healthy again, including all the detours in between.
While this book is about cancer, it's not just about survival. It's a love story about cancer. It's a story about Robin's love of adventure, her love of love, and her love for herself. Grounded yet irreverent, informative and anecdotal, Surviving Paris has laughter, sorrow, and some unforgettable cringe-worthy moments. It also has courage, surprises, and remarkable depths of heart.
Robin writes about the struggles of finding her community and family away from home, dating on Tinder with one boob, and learning to be the best advocate for her medical care in a culture she doesn't completely understand, and that doesn't understand her. Surviving Paris details the good, the bad, and the ugly of expatriating to Paris and one American woman's unexpected and often hilarious journey—and her precious second chance at life.
"[A] candid debut memoir…[Davis] has persisted, determined to survive and thrive in a place she has grown to love. A frank chronicle of pain and hard-won recovery." —Kirkus Reviews
"Davis's detailed account of her challenges upon settling in Paris demonstrates how even the world's most romanticized and beloved cities can lay the backdrop to hardship. With refreshing honesty and grace, she weaves a moving story of perseverance, faith, and the power of community. All of it allowed her to reclaim the French capital as her own with great triumph." —Lindsey Tramuta, journalist and author of The New Parisienne: the Women & Ideas Shaping Paris
"Robin is a one-of-a-kind storyteller — vividly capturing every emotion and sentiment in this loving memoir... Prepare yourself for laughter, tears, and a whole lot of inspiration from this courageous story of triumph. It's honest. It's bold. It's intimate. It's real. It's survival. This is a must-read for anyone with a wanderlust spirit, anyone seeking a deeper relationship with themselves — and especially for those wondering how to survive some of life's greatest challenges. Get ready for your heart to be cracked open — in the most courageous, beautifully human way possible." —Alencia Johnson, social impact leader and national bestselling author of Flip the Tables: The Everyday Disruptors Guide to Finding Courage and Making Change
This information about Surviving Paris was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Robin Allison Davis is an Emmy Award-winning journalist, writer, and producer based in Paris and born and raised in the Washington, DC, area. After a ten-year television career in New York City and desiring to see more of the world, she moved to Paris in 2016 to pursue the dream of a more international lifestyle—and got more than she bargained for. A two-time breast cancer survivor, Surviving Paris is her first book.
If you liked Surviving Paris, try these:
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
by Victoria E.. Schwab
Published 2026
From V. E. Schwab, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: a new genre-defying novel about immortality and hunger.
A Short Walk Through a Wide World
by Douglas Westerbeke
Published 2025
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue meets Life of Pi in this dazzlingly epic debut that charts the incredible, adventurous life of one woman as she journeys the globe trying to outrun a mysterious curse that will destroy her if she stops moving.
by Maame Blue
Published 2024
An internationally award-winning writer makes her triumphant American debut in this emotionally powerful story—a potent blend of Queenie and The Vanishing Half—about a woman's journey to uncover a foundational family secret from the childhood she does not remember.
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home: but unlike charity, it should end there.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
