Avoiding Sex with Frenchmen

by Shoshanah Lee Marohn

New, updated second edition with black and white pictures!

It's Paris like you've never seen it- ugly, unromantic, and hilarious.

Pure as newly driven snow, three teenaged girls arrive in Paris, with little money and a large passion for art (especially art where lots of people die gruesome and terrible deaths). Immediately, they are constantly propositioned by men. Everywhere. Anything they do, men ask to have sex with them. They don't say hello or how are you, they just ask to have sex with them. Why do the French men like them so much? What is wrong with these people who won't let you walk ten feet without asking to have sex with you? Will the three of them even survive the trip? Sketch drawings of every Frenchman who approached them complete the hysterical telling of this ill-fated tale.

126 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 18, 2015

About the author

Shoshanah Lee Marohn is an artist and writer. She lives on a small farm in rural Wisconsin with several goofy looking sheep.

Reviews

[Christina McMullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much like her last travel tale, Exhaust(Ed), Avoiding Sex with Frenchmen is a series of misadventures interspersed with commentary that can only come from hindsight. In this installment, young adult Shoshanah comes across a flyer for a cheap flight to Paris and decides, as a (possible) French major, passing up this opportunity is not an option and drags two of her friends (who have never met each other) with her.

There are some rough beginnings, like the fact that their reservations seem to go missing and the hotel has no towels. There are the usual problems of ill will and bickering that happen when friends are forced into close quarters for the first time and of course, the standard incident of someone being recruited into a hippie cult. But also, as the title states, it seems that the girls are unable to make it a full city block without being propositioned.

The storytelling is fun, going off onto tangents and inserting asides while somehow managing to stay focused on telling the tale. Were I to have any nitpick at all it would be that Ms. Marohn does not seem to share my love of the catacombs and the Parisian underground, but if you read the book, you might come to understand why.
An excellent read!

[Devyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book from Goodreads.

This book almost got me in trouble. My mom was with me when I removed it from the shipping packaging and "Avoiding Sex with Frenchmen, A Picture Book for Adults" doesn't exactly inspire innocent thoughts. I had to endure her suspicious glare while she flipped through the book looking for incriminating evidence that wasn't there. Haha.
Maybe next time, mom.
Anyway, as I said before there wasn't anything in the book that would prompt disinheritance from even the most prudish of mothers. It it simply a travel book. With pictures. No, not nude pictures, my brother checked and was disappointed.
Maybe next time, bro.
It follows a spur of the moment adventure in Paris that should have been better planed and a certain person never invited in the first place. It is a very quick and entertaining read made all the better by my mother's face when she first saw it.
I am never going to let her live it down.

[Dwayne Fry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, funny book about three young American women and their visit to Paris. Perhaps just a wee bit better than Shoshanah Marohn's "Exhaust(ed)", but if you read both, I would recommend reading that one first. They do work as stand alone books, but there are some allusions to the other book in this one that are more delightful if you have prior knowledge of the events in "Exhaust(ed)". Recommended for anyone who wants to visit Paris and avoid sex with Frenchmen. Or, just anyone looking for a good laugh.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a funny book; I especially loved the use of French idioms and their literal meanings, and how they fit in with what was going on in the story. I appreciated the artwork as well, and wish I could draw!

I loved it as is, but I also think I was waiting for either more details on the characters and their relationships, or else more about those French men.

I really enjoyed this and will look for more by this author.

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can only imagine that this is the kind of stuff that would happen to me on a trip to Paris. I laughed at the crazy circumstances these girls found themselves in and as a parent, cringed at the thought of my oldest daughter of the same age traveling with two friends and experiencing this kind of a trip.

[Martha Jackson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book can easily be read in one sitting. The questionable dudes on each page are a hoot!