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Nice Girls Don't Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power
“A bible for badass women.”—SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR
“Gripping and liberating.”—ADAM GRANT, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential and Think Again
“Survivor legend and gay icon, Parvati Shallow has won my heart all over again.”—BOWEN YANG
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A bold, eye-opening memoir about survival, trauma, and healing, from one of reality television’s most talked-about stars
At twenty-five years old, Parvati Shallow was plunged into fame and fortune after becoming the million-dollar winner of the reality television series Survivor. But despite her success, the ghosts of her traumatic past, coupled with the harsh glare of the public eye, kept her locked in a survival cycle of fear and shame that sabotaged her self-confidence and eroded her self-trust. It wasn’t until a series of painful life events, including the death of her younger brother and a challenging divorce, that she found herself on a path of healing that would awaken her true power and reset the course of her life.
In Nice Girls Don’t Win, Shallow shares the stories that allowed her to transform her most difficult moments into potent catalysts for empowerment. From her childhood growing up in a Florida commune run by a tyrannical female guru, to her journey out of the South and into the L.A. casting rooms that would eventually drop her in the lush but brutal landscapes of Survivor, Shallow shows readers what it took to build herself into the ultimate survivor—for better and, more often, for worse. She then reveals what it took to rebuild herself into something much greater.
As harrowing as it is healing, Parvati Shallow’s story is a testament to the profound lessons that can be found in radical self-acceptance and self-love.
“Gripping and liberating.”—ADAM GRANT, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential and Think Again
“Survivor legend and gay icon, Parvati Shallow has won my heart all over again.”—BOWEN YANG
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A bold, eye-opening memoir about survival, trauma, and healing, from one of reality television’s most talked-about stars
At twenty-five years old, Parvati Shallow was plunged into fame and fortune after becoming the million-dollar winner of the reality television series Survivor. But despite her success, the ghosts of her traumatic past, coupled with the harsh glare of the public eye, kept her locked in a survival cycle of fear and shame that sabotaged her self-confidence and eroded her self-trust. It wasn’t until a series of painful life events, including the death of her younger brother and a challenging divorce, that she found herself on a path of healing that would awaken her true power and reset the course of her life.
In Nice Girls Don’t Win, Shallow shares the stories that allowed her to transform her most difficult moments into potent catalysts for empowerment. From her childhood growing up in a Florida commune run by a tyrannical female guru, to her journey out of the South and into the L.A. casting rooms that would eventually drop her in the lush but brutal landscapes of Survivor, Shallow shows readers what it took to build herself into the ultimate survivor—for better and, more often, for worse. She then reveals what it took to rebuild herself into something much greater.
As harrowing as it is healing, Parvati Shallow’s story is a testament to the profound lessons that can be found in radical self-acceptance and self-love.
237 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 8, 2025
421 people are currently reading
13949 people want to read
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July 17, 2025for any fellow Survivor fans out there, Parvati wrote a book! i really enjoyed it. her childhood/early life was fascinating and seeing how she was able to be so successful on Survivor from all of her life experiences before was interesting! there isn't a ton of Survivor-talk in it, so keep that in mind. also a quick read, well under 300 pages so the audiobook was very quick too!
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July 20, 2025no rating! I usually don’t rate memoirs, especially when they’re personal & reflective.
this was a fun, quick, and interesting listen, especially as a longtime survivor fan and I loved that parvati narrated the audiobook! there’s something special about authors telling their own stories in their own voice 🎧
this book offers a thoughtful look behind the scenes - how parvati really felt during and after her survivor seasons, how she processed others’ perceptions of her, and how her relationship with herself has evolved over time. if you’re a big fan of hers, you’ll probably find a lot to appreciate here. that said, I wouldn’t say it’s a *must-read* for casual survivor fans 🤷♀️
the book also leans into spirituality and self-reflection in a way that might not resonate with everyone. I personally found it compelling, but the “woo woo” factor is definitely present. my only real critique is that the title doesn’t fully match the tone or content. it felt more introspective and tender than the bold title suggests but still really enjoyed 💛
this was a fun, quick, and interesting listen, especially as a longtime survivor fan and I loved that parvati narrated the audiobook! there’s something special about authors telling their own stories in their own voice 🎧
this book offers a thoughtful look behind the scenes - how parvati really felt during and after her survivor seasons, how she processed others’ perceptions of her, and how her relationship with herself has evolved over time. if you’re a big fan of hers, you’ll probably find a lot to appreciate here. that said, I wouldn’t say it’s a *must-read* for casual survivor fans 🤷♀️
the book also leans into spirituality and self-reflection in a way that might not resonate with everyone. I personally found it compelling, but the “woo woo” factor is definitely present. my only real critique is that the title doesn’t fully match the tone or content. it felt more introspective and tender than the bold title suggests but still really enjoyed 💛
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July 9, 2025QUEEN PARV!
August 21, 2025
This is a very difficult memoir to like--Parvati Shallow's self-analysis matches her name. It's confusing and reveals that her thought process is extremely shallow.
What could have been an opportunity to apologize to the many people she hurt over her years on television and in life, instead she turns back on herself claiming she was "shamed" inappropriately, failing to see how evil her art of fawning really is. Parvati is a complete fake, she admits it, then wonders why people approach her saying how much they hate her--it's because television exposed her secret of being a fraud in order to try to control others to get them to like her!
The parts of her life story that are the most interesting are the ones that she devotes the least amount of space to. It's disappointing that she fails to come up with much to tell about her nine years in a cult, with her parents keeping ties to the weird female leader long after the family left the group. That alone should be a book-length case study on how raising a child in a repressed group can damage a child the rest of her life. And if you want to know much about her behind-the-scenes seasons on Survivor you'll be shocked how she barely glazes over what's she's best known for.
Instead Shallow brags about how she has turned out, using her body and charms to seduce those around her to like her. Her entire goal is to draw everyone in, then control and manipulate them. In high school she used some of that for good, but when she got on national television those same traits were exposed as being hurtful, harmful, and disgusting. Her "Black Widow Brigade" was named that way for a reason.
She writes that she was devastated by the negative public reaction--so of course she went on the show three more times to supposedly redeem herself and the negative feedback got worse each island visit! She is the one who caused her own pain by exposing her fraudulent self and to see her then proclaim that this was abuse by others or anti-female slut-shaming is absurd. She DID act like a slut since childhood, only stopping short of ever letting anyone sleep with her. She admits she used her seductive body language to get men AND women to trust her, then she could do what she wanted with them.
She admits that once she got all this negative response, she dove in even deeper! "To take the edge off I developed my own addiction to the allure of sex and power games in my romantic relationships." Claiming she felt "hideously ugly inside," she doubled down on the terrible false surface tactics that got her into her bad self-image.
She lacks a basic understanding of shame, it's purpose, and how it's not always negative. There's a reason we physically and mentally react in shame--sometimes it's our bodies or minds telling us to change things, while at other times it's a wakeup call to seeing an off-kilter relationship with someone or something. Alcoholics suffer a lot of shame, but that can be used to empower them to stop drinking and start healing.
In Parvati's case she continues to see shame as other people treating her poorly instead of that she has something that needs to be course-corrected. She brags about her ability to "fawn" over others (a unique chapter that few other books would have since fawning is rarely mentioned elsewhere) and says it's a way for women to fight power-wielding assertive men because "it can be safe to stay small, pleasing, nice and helpful. Fawning is especially useful in situations of domestic violence, kidnapping or sexual assault." HUH? So the answer to abuse is not standing up for yourself or stating the truth or removing yourself from the situation but to physically flirt and lie? Wow, is she misguided.
The latter part of the book is about her sleeping around, getting married to another Survivor guy (who she slams while expecting him to treat her like a goddess) and having a kid (blaming her bad parenting on “postpartum anxiety”), quitting any job that she finds “confining,” divorcing while her husband had stage 4 cancer, then finding a doctor who gave her sex "off the charts" and falling into her mold of wanting a high-powered man to conquer (she broke up with him after his sex play wasn’t kinky enough!). Bored when she lost control of him, Parvati meets a born female standup comic/actress that's a Survivor fan, they become lovers, and suddenly Shallow is no longer sexually binary. I took that to mean Parvati wanted to finally be the top in the relationship, including wearing a strap-on dildo (which she brags about in the book), and as of this review the two may no longer be together. The book’s ending is ambiguous.
Thankfully she manages to sneak in a few pages about her time on Traitors, but it doesn’t give much insight into the production. It does however remind us that there is one man that she was unable to manipulate through fawning and that was Peter from The Bachelor. He had enough experience with women flirting that he couldn’t be fooled by a fake seductress. And she hated him for it.
Parvati claims it's not about the sex and defends against claims that she's a slut but fails to see that to outsiders her traits are interpreted as sexually seductive and immoral. She needs to redefine her actions instead of standing by her warped views based on a childhood in a cult. She says she tries to do that but there's not a lot of evidence she's successful when continually bragging about her manipulative fawning abilities as her "power."
In the end Shallow is the problem--not the game, not the critics, certainly not the men or patriarchal society, not really even her female-worshipping upbringing. At some point an individual has to be responsible for her own adult actions. Here she tries--she gets into all sorts of self-help books to figure out how to change or deal with her obvious mental illness--but ultimately her self-perception throughout is that she's so attractive and can use it to diminish others that it worked to her advantage when she was young, so she's not going to stop. Saying she "claims her power" is a bizarre woke phrase that people often use to justify continuing to act selfishly instead of seeing how bad they hurt others or fail to find real solutions to their confusion.
Just watch what she did on Traitors or Deal or No Deal Island and you'll see that this woman has remained "shallow." She again wasn't very nice but she didn't win. Just like in this book.
What could have been an opportunity to apologize to the many people she hurt over her years on television and in life, instead she turns back on herself claiming she was "shamed" inappropriately, failing to see how evil her art of fawning really is. Parvati is a complete fake, she admits it, then wonders why people approach her saying how much they hate her--it's because television exposed her secret of being a fraud in order to try to control others to get them to like her!
The parts of her life story that are the most interesting are the ones that she devotes the least amount of space to. It's disappointing that she fails to come up with much to tell about her nine years in a cult, with her parents keeping ties to the weird female leader long after the family left the group. That alone should be a book-length case study on how raising a child in a repressed group can damage a child the rest of her life. And if you want to know much about her behind-the-scenes seasons on Survivor you'll be shocked how she barely glazes over what's she's best known for.
Instead Shallow brags about how she has turned out, using her body and charms to seduce those around her to like her. Her entire goal is to draw everyone in, then control and manipulate them. In high school she used some of that for good, but when she got on national television those same traits were exposed as being hurtful, harmful, and disgusting. Her "Black Widow Brigade" was named that way for a reason.
She writes that she was devastated by the negative public reaction--so of course she went on the show three more times to supposedly redeem herself and the negative feedback got worse each island visit! She is the one who caused her own pain by exposing her fraudulent self and to see her then proclaim that this was abuse by others or anti-female slut-shaming is absurd. She DID act like a slut since childhood, only stopping short of ever letting anyone sleep with her. She admits she used her seductive body language to get men AND women to trust her, then she could do what she wanted with them.
She admits that once she got all this negative response, she dove in even deeper! "To take the edge off I developed my own addiction to the allure of sex and power games in my romantic relationships." Claiming she felt "hideously ugly inside," she doubled down on the terrible false surface tactics that got her into her bad self-image.
She lacks a basic understanding of shame, it's purpose, and how it's not always negative. There's a reason we physically and mentally react in shame--sometimes it's our bodies or minds telling us to change things, while at other times it's a wakeup call to seeing an off-kilter relationship with someone or something. Alcoholics suffer a lot of shame, but that can be used to empower them to stop drinking and start healing.
In Parvati's case she continues to see shame as other people treating her poorly instead of that she has something that needs to be course-corrected. She brags about her ability to "fawn" over others (a unique chapter that few other books would have since fawning is rarely mentioned elsewhere) and says it's a way for women to fight power-wielding assertive men because "it can be safe to stay small, pleasing, nice and helpful. Fawning is especially useful in situations of domestic violence, kidnapping or sexual assault." HUH? So the answer to abuse is not standing up for yourself or stating the truth or removing yourself from the situation but to physically flirt and lie? Wow, is she misguided.
The latter part of the book is about her sleeping around, getting married to another Survivor guy (who she slams while expecting him to treat her like a goddess) and having a kid (blaming her bad parenting on “postpartum anxiety”), quitting any job that she finds “confining,” divorcing while her husband had stage 4 cancer, then finding a doctor who gave her sex "off the charts" and falling into her mold of wanting a high-powered man to conquer (she broke up with him after his sex play wasn’t kinky enough!). Bored when she lost control of him, Parvati meets a born female standup comic/actress that's a Survivor fan, they become lovers, and suddenly Shallow is no longer sexually binary. I took that to mean Parvati wanted to finally be the top in the relationship, including wearing a strap-on dildo (which she brags about in the book), and as of this review the two may no longer be together. The book’s ending is ambiguous.
Thankfully she manages to sneak in a few pages about her time on Traitors, but it doesn’t give much insight into the production. It does however remind us that there is one man that she was unable to manipulate through fawning and that was Peter from The Bachelor. He had enough experience with women flirting that he couldn’t be fooled by a fake seductress. And she hated him for it.
Parvati claims it's not about the sex and defends against claims that she's a slut but fails to see that to outsiders her traits are interpreted as sexually seductive and immoral. She needs to redefine her actions instead of standing by her warped views based on a childhood in a cult. She says she tries to do that but there's not a lot of evidence she's successful when continually bragging about her manipulative fawning abilities as her "power."
In the end Shallow is the problem--not the game, not the critics, certainly not the men or patriarchal society, not really even her female-worshipping upbringing. At some point an individual has to be responsible for her own adult actions. Here she tries--she gets into all sorts of self-help books to figure out how to change or deal with her obvious mental illness--but ultimately her self-perception throughout is that she's so attractive and can use it to diminish others that it worked to her advantage when she was young, so she's not going to stop. Saying she "claims her power" is a bizarre woke phrase that people often use to justify continuing to act selfishly instead of seeing how bad they hurt others or fail to find real solutions to their confusion.
Just watch what she did on Traitors or Deal or No Deal Island and you'll see that this woman has remained "shallow." She again wasn't very nice but she didn't win. Just like in this book.
Read
August 22, 2025Queen Parv! A vulnerable, open, and enjoyable quick read.
January 24, 2025
Parvati has and will always be a reality star beast! But reading how she’s done the work to reclaim negative comments about her, that she use to let define her and has now turned them into power was so validating and lovely. I tore through the book, not once thinking “this is a celeb memoir” - it stands in a category on its own.
August 26, 2025
This was a solid celebrity memoir. I wasn't wowed by it but it was well written and cohesive. If not a little too corny and sprinkled with self-help. I would've liked a little morse gossip/tea but I understand why someone wouldn't want to do that. I listened on audio and really liked her narration.
July 20, 2025
I mean… if you’re gna explain all of your life through the lens of fight flight freeze or fawn, you’re obviously not producing a memoir with searing self reflection.
It is anchored in the idea that she has trauma, which in itself is a very debatable premise because all evidence points to her being a healthy adult that copes with difficult situations as they arise. And perhaps what she points to as trauma responses such as not being able to continue boxing after survivor because “she’s been attacked enough” is simply her body being completely worn out from playing for 39 days.
It just reads like someone with a lot of self limiting beliefs. Clearly overidentifies with psychology and spiritual healing speak, which takes away from any ability to read situations outside of this lens.
For example, her flirting is a “fawn” response because she grew up in a cult. Umm. Every pretty girl does this. If Parvati grew up in heaven she’d still flirt. It’s human nature to use our privileges. It’s not a trauma response.
This book is an indication that Parvati needs to liberate herself from self-work and self-reflection and get a hobby outside of herself.
It is anchored in the idea that she has trauma, which in itself is a very debatable premise because all evidence points to her being a healthy adult that copes with difficult situations as they arise. And perhaps what she points to as trauma responses such as not being able to continue boxing after survivor because “she’s been attacked enough” is simply her body being completely worn out from playing for 39 days.
It just reads like someone with a lot of self limiting beliefs. Clearly overidentifies with psychology and spiritual healing speak, which takes away from any ability to read situations outside of this lens.
For example, her flirting is a “fawn” response because she grew up in a cult. Umm. Every pretty girl does this. If Parvati grew up in heaven she’d still flirt. It’s human nature to use our privileges. It’s not a trauma response.
This book is an indication that Parvati needs to liberate herself from self-work and self-reflection and get a hobby outside of herself.
July 25, 2025
Of course I had to pick up Nice Girls Don’t Win. I’ve been a Parvati fan since I first saw her on Survivor.
Nice Girls Don’t Win chronicles Parvati’s life as she struggled through her trauma, survived, then ultimately healed. Before reading this, I didn’t know anything about her personally other than what was shown on TV.
Parvati’s formative years had an immense impact on her life as readers see echoes of her childhood experiences growing up in a commune her parents ultimately fled.
Survivor clearly had an impact on Parvati’s life and not just financially, but emotionally as well. So, it was disappointing to see so little of it in the book. This by no means a criticism of the book or Parvati since, if I’m not mistaken, she’s under a strict NDA regarding the show and what she can share about it. The few tidbits that were included were interesting and gave readers a look into who Parvati is as a person and a player while also detailing her growth.
It becomes even more glaringly apparent that Parvati was unable to dive deep into Survivor when she wrote about her time on The Traitors.
Ultimately, Nice Girls Don’t Win is about Parvati’s journey as a woman in our patriarchal society, learning and understanding her power, then finding the space to heal and accept her true self.
The negative reviews I’ve seen for Nice Girls Don’t Win are in line with the hate and backlash she received when playing Survivor. The misogyny is alive and well!
Nice Girls Don’t Win chronicles Parvati’s life as she struggled through her trauma, survived, then ultimately healed. Before reading this, I didn’t know anything about her personally other than what was shown on TV.
Parvati’s formative years had an immense impact on her life as readers see echoes of her childhood experiences growing up in a commune her parents ultimately fled.
Survivor clearly had an impact on Parvati’s life and not just financially, but emotionally as well. So, it was disappointing to see so little of it in the book. This by no means a criticism of the book or Parvati since, if I’m not mistaken, she’s under a strict NDA regarding the show and what she can share about it. The few tidbits that were included were interesting and gave readers a look into who Parvati is as a person and a player while also detailing her growth.
It becomes even more glaringly apparent that Parvati was unable to dive deep into Survivor when she wrote about her time on The Traitors.
Ultimately, Nice Girls Don’t Win is about Parvati’s journey as a woman in our patriarchal society, learning and understanding her power, then finding the space to heal and accept her true self.
The negative reviews I’ve seen for Nice Girls Don’t Win are in line with the hate and backlash she received when playing Survivor. The misogyny is alive and well!
July 17, 2025
took a break from reading two really well written novels to read a reality tv star’s memoir and I regret nothing
this was badly written! also repetitive! but I finally learned why this obviously white woman is named Parvati and it was worth it for that alone
this was badly written! also repetitive! but I finally learned why this obviously white woman is named Parvati and it was worth it for that alone
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September 2, 2025The most therapized person to never address their actual core wound. Parvati's exploration of her psyche and life crises was fascinating and well written, but I wish she had gone one layer deeper.
July 20, 2025
Poor girl. That’s a lot of therapy. Like she made going to therapy a full time job.
Also- most people handed a windfall lose it all in a couple years. Yes she did.
I know I sound judgmental. I’d just hoped for more substance and less Hollywood millennial psychobabel.
Also- most people handed a windfall lose it all in a couple years. Yes she did.
I know I sound judgmental. I’d just hoped for more substance and less Hollywood millennial psychobabel.
July 21, 2025
maybe she didn't need to write a book
July 29, 2025
this is my Bible
October 17, 2025
oh godvati
*was hoping for more survivor content tho
*was hoping for more survivor content tho
July 13, 2025
parvati shallow deserves the world 💐💐💐
March 28, 2025
As an avid reality tv fan (and someone who has a podcast all about it), I am of course very familiar with who Parvati Shallow is. She's a Survivor legend, and the Fans vs Favorites season was the first one I really got into, which means I got to watch her and her Black Widow Brigade work their magic. I was also happy to see her have a comeback during her stint on The Traitors, which is one of my favorite shows on tv right now. Even though I know her as an iconic tv personality, I didn't know very much about her personal history, so this book was highly informative. I imagine it took so much vulnerability to recount her childhood growing up in a commune with her parents, and explaining how she definitely has trauma but doesn't necessarily remember all of it. Between that kind of upbringing and the tragedy she experienced with the unexpected loss of her brother, it's clear that Parvati has had to go through a lot of healing work, and she is absolutely a survivor (pun intended) for going through everything she has gone through. It was nice to get a better sense of who she is in her own words, and I have a greater appreciation for her.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!
July 14, 2025
queen 👸
July 20, 2025
I’ve never watched survivor, but watched Parv on Traitors & DONDI, and always thought she was an amazing player. I lovedddd learning about her childhood & upbringing, I found it incredibly interesting. I had no clue she had a cult upbringing & it was interesting to learn about how that affected her growing up. I felt like towards the end of the book, I wasn’t as interested in the story but overall I found this book good!
November 5, 2025
had a LOT of fun listening to this
as someone who started watching survivor this year, i’m a huge parvati stan and i did not know basically any of this!! my poor girl! she has lived such an insane and interesting life, and i really enjoyed the way she told her story and the difficulties she went through with like things about trauma and how the body responds!
it was a bit more woo woo than i typically think or enjoy, but it was interesting to listen to and honestly towards the end it was awesome to hear about how all of the tools she used to heal from her traumas culminated to how she lives her life and how she moves through the world today! it was just fun to hear about how she healed and how she’s thriving! she is my goat!!!!!!! plus a few parts made me cry. i loved the ending too
and in a way all she needed was to be loved non-binaryily
as someone who started watching survivor this year, i’m a huge parvati stan and i did not know basically any of this!! my poor girl! she has lived such an insane and interesting life, and i really enjoyed the way she told her story and the difficulties she went through with like things about trauma and how the body responds!
it was a bit more woo woo than i typically think or enjoy, but it was interesting to listen to and honestly towards the end it was awesome to hear about how all of the tools she used to heal from her traumas culminated to how she lives her life and how she moves through the world today! it was just fun to hear about how she healed and how she’s thriving! she is my goat!!!!!!! plus a few parts made me cry. i loved the ending too
and in a way all she needed was to be loved non-binaryily
October 29, 2025
3.75⭐️ listened on Audiobook & ugh I could listen to Parvati narrate anything. I watched her on Traitors & know she’s a Survivor legend, & I’m glad I could hear her story & learn about her beyond the reality tv lens. This book is about building, breaking, & surviving everything life throws at you, & showing YOURSELF you can accept the good, the bad, & the ugly.
July 18, 2025
An addicting and vulnerable memoir. I read it in 2 days which rarely happens for me anymore but I couldn’t put this down! I am a Parv fan girl through and through and I loved getting to hear more of her story. She tells her story in a very self aware way and I thought this was so well done!
August 4, 2025
Listen I love Parvati but this book was not well written
January 2, 2026
(3.5 rounded up) man i love Parv, what a cool woman. i really didn't know much about her besides watching her on Traitors so it was fun to get to know more about her beyond the TV persona. i haven't watched any of her Survivor seasons (i know!!) so it was really interesting to read about her experiences without having the attachment to the show.
the book started out so strong for me but then really fell off in part 3, and i think that's just because it started to sound a bit too millennial and woo woo/self-helpy for me. parts 1 and 2 though were so profound, absolutely adored her vulnerability and opennness. i related to a lot of her self thoughts and world view.
still recommend it overall, especially for fans!
the book started out so strong for me but then really fell off in part 3, and i think that's just because it started to sound a bit too millennial and woo woo/self-helpy for me. parts 1 and 2 though were so profound, absolutely adored her vulnerability and opennness. i related to a lot of her self thoughts and world view.
still recommend it overall, especially for fans!
September 3, 2025
I’m definitely biased but I loved this! It was so cool hearing Parvati’s story (both on her game shows and in her personal life) and as a psych major I liked how she centered it around fear responses. Definitely recommend for any fans of survivor or traitors!
September 30, 2025
Ok kind of hard to rate this one. Lots of thoughts…
There will be “spoilers” for the book, but it doesn’t feel like spoilers since it’s her life and you can just look up what she has done in her life. But wanted to say in case you want to read this.
I picked this up because I love Survivor, and Pavarti is one of the greats. (I’ll read any memoir written by a Survivor player.) But reading this made me like her less? Idk I just didn’t really agree with some of her opinions on life and the standards she has (like emotionally cheating on her husband when he had stage four cancer lol).
When I first started reading it, I felt like there was a lot of “therapy speak.” Therapy isn’t bad obviously, but I feel like you can sometimes tell when people have gone recently because their language is full of a certain kind of language. And then halfway through the book you find out Pavarti is a life coach, so makes sense her book is infused with life coach language like “reclaiming your truth.” She also does a lot of other woo woo stuff that I just could not relate to lol. (Her “about the author” section was a great summary of all her “certifications.”)
Her editor definitely had her infuse lots of Survivor/tribe metaphors, which I guess makes sense. It’s what made her famous, so you gotta play to your fans.
The beginning was fascinating - loved reading about her childhood growing up in a cult on a compound. Wish we got more of that in the book.
It was interesting to hear what happened to her after she went on Survivor and how she processed how she played and the media backlash. She made a good point that we often see people on those shows as “characters” and not real people.
But at the same time it all felt kind of fake? Idk like she had this running theme of “fawning,” taking back your power and owning your life, and “surviving,” but it just felt like she needed a “lesson” for the book and decided to write with that lens. Which I guess most memoirs do that, but it didn’t feel *natural* in hers. Felt kind of…shallow, like she’s living up to her name. The title kind of connected to the book, but I felt like she could have found a better one.
Fun to hear about the Traitors and how the media response was different for her now that we live in the 2020s vs the 2000s when she went on Survivor. Although even then you can tell she’s under an NDA for her TV appearances because she was very vague about the behind the scenes. (Everyone knows they don’t actually stay in the castle, but the show makes it look like she does. And then in her book, she writes like she stayed there haha.)
Not fun to hear about her exploring things in the bedroom. I’m always fascinated by what people choose to include in their memoirs haha.
Felt like it started as a therapy exercise to write about her life and then she decided to make it into a book.
Audiobook was fun because it was narrated by her.
I used to not rate memoirs because it’s their life. But you know she’s writing this to get more money, so as a reader I have the right to rate haha. (She’s gotta do what she’s gotta do since she apparently squandered most of her million investing in her failed self help clinic. 😅)
There will be “spoilers” for the book, but it doesn’t feel like spoilers since it’s her life and you can just look up what she has done in her life. But wanted to say in case you want to read this.
I picked this up because I love Survivor, and Pavarti is one of the greats. (I’ll read any memoir written by a Survivor player.) But reading this made me like her less? Idk I just didn’t really agree with some of her opinions on life and the standards she has (like emotionally cheating on her husband when he had stage four cancer lol).
When I first started reading it, I felt like there was a lot of “therapy speak.” Therapy isn’t bad obviously, but I feel like you can sometimes tell when people have gone recently because their language is full of a certain kind of language. And then halfway through the book you find out Pavarti is a life coach, so makes sense her book is infused with life coach language like “reclaiming your truth.” She also does a lot of other woo woo stuff that I just could not relate to lol. (Her “about the author” section was a great summary of all her “certifications.”)
Her editor definitely had her infuse lots of Survivor/tribe metaphors, which I guess makes sense. It’s what made her famous, so you gotta play to your fans.
The beginning was fascinating - loved reading about her childhood growing up in a cult on a compound. Wish we got more of that in the book.
It was interesting to hear what happened to her after she went on Survivor and how she processed how she played and the media backlash. She made a good point that we often see people on those shows as “characters” and not real people.
But at the same time it all felt kind of fake? Idk like she had this running theme of “fawning,” taking back your power and owning your life, and “surviving,” but it just felt like she needed a “lesson” for the book and decided to write with that lens. Which I guess most memoirs do that, but it didn’t feel *natural* in hers. Felt kind of…shallow, like she’s living up to her name. The title kind of connected to the book, but I felt like she could have found a better one.
Fun to hear about the Traitors and how the media response was different for her now that we live in the 2020s vs the 2000s when she went on Survivor. Although even then you can tell she’s under an NDA for her TV appearances because she was very vague about the behind the scenes. (Everyone knows they don’t actually stay in the castle, but the show makes it look like she does. And then in her book, she writes like she stayed there haha.)
Not fun to hear about her exploring things in the bedroom. I’m always fascinated by what people choose to include in their memoirs haha.
Felt like it started as a therapy exercise to write about her life and then she decided to make it into a book.
Audiobook was fun because it was narrated by her.
I used to not rate memoirs because it’s their life. But you know she’s writing this to get more money, so as a reader I have the right to rate haha. (She’s gotta do what she’s gotta do since she apparently squandered most of her million investing in her failed self help clinic. 😅)
July 19, 2025
I don't want to be too harsh because I love Parvati, but this was underwhelming. She's gone through so many hardships and unique experiences and I wish she'd done a little more showing and less telling. Maybe she's still under NDA and can't speak too much about survivor but I didn't learn anything about her time on 13, 16, or 20 that I didn't know, and she didn't even speak on WaW!
July 13, 2025
Tens across the board! While I bought the physical copy of this book, I cannot recommend the audio enough. Even listening I found myself going back to the section I just listened to and relistening to it again.
I went into this thinking it might contain some fun juicy stories about my one favourite reality tv contestants on some of my favourite shows, but that is merely the surface.
You can clearly tell Parvati is a self-reflective student of therapy and much of what she said spoke to me as someone who identifies of such as well.
Her stories were very relatable, raw, and beautiful. Finally, a clear strength of her writing is the breadth she speaks to in a succinct amount of words.
Whether you’re a fan of reality tv or deep personal memoirs I cannot recommend this book enough!
I went into this thinking it might contain some fun juicy stories about my one favourite reality tv contestants on some of my favourite shows, but that is merely the surface.
You can clearly tell Parvati is a self-reflective student of therapy and much of what she said spoke to me as someone who identifies of such as well.
Her stories were very relatable, raw, and beautiful. Finally, a clear strength of her writing is the breadth she speaks to in a succinct amount of words.
Whether you’re a fan of reality tv or deep personal memoirs I cannot recommend this book enough!
August 13, 2025
3.5 but rounding up because I like Parvati.
I listened to the audio book which I think made it a better experience to hear the memoir self-narrated. I came in expecting to really hear a lot about Survivor, and while a main theme of the book is surviving, the actual talk about the show felt shorter than expected (and strange when contrasted with her longer explanation of a single season of The Traitors, but I digress). I actually enjoyed hearing about her life, I think a lot of it sounds like something I'd hear in a yoga class and I enjoy learning about and listening to experiences of our bodies connecting to nature and handling stress. Overall, it slightly surpassed my expectations for a memoir written by a Survivor player, so I was happy listening to it!
I listened to the audio book which I think made it a better experience to hear the memoir self-narrated. I came in expecting to really hear a lot about Survivor, and while a main theme of the book is surviving, the actual talk about the show felt shorter than expected (and strange when contrasted with her longer explanation of a single season of The Traitors, but I digress). I actually enjoyed hearing about her life, I think a lot of it sounds like something I'd hear in a yoga class and I enjoy learning about and listening to experiences of our bodies connecting to nature and handling stress. Overall, it slightly surpassed my expectations for a memoir written by a Survivor player, so I was happy listening to it!
August 18, 2025
Mixed feelings about this one. It felt like Parvati wanted to explore topics & share more but wasn’t actually diving deep and ironically, it all ended up feeling very shallow and surface level. I’ve been a fan of Parvati and I’m glad she’s been able to come into her own and find peace but I was really expecting more insight into Survivor, her marriage to John Fincher and her queerness.
I did see comments from multiple Redditors who said they attended one of Parvati’s readings & apparently she said that CBS made her cut out a lot out of the book, so maybe that has something to do with it.
I don’t like to give memoirs a low rating, but this one left much to be desired.
2.5 rounded up.
I did see comments from multiple Redditors who said they attended one of Parvati’s readings & apparently she said that CBS made her cut out a lot out of the book, so maybe that has something to do with it.
I don’t like to give memoirs a low rating, but this one left much to be desired.
2.5 rounded up.
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