I’m a big Survivor fan. I’ve seen every episode of every season and Parvati Shallow is a legend of the game. I was looking for something to get me pumped about Season 50 before it premiered and a contestant memoir seemed like the perfect pick-me-up.
Nice Girls Don’t Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power by Parvati Shallow
Summary from Amazon:
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.
I had some expectations going into this book and in a way those were met, but in other ways I was disappointed. I wanted more about her time on Survivor and that was the biggest gap I had with this book. Survivor put Parv on the map and while she talked a bit about her times on the show, it wasn’t a major focus. I was also curious to learn more about her life before she became a Survivor icon and in that sense I was hugely satisfied. I wasn’t anticipating so much about her time after Survivor, but that’s on me. She was on the show so long ago that I should have suspected the time since would be part of a recently released memoir. I appreciated the perspective she has since her time on the show and I’m honestly looking forward to seeing her in a few other things I plan to watch.
Besides herself, the only person who is well developed in the book is her ex-husband, John. I don’t remember much about him from his season on Survivor. (If you watch, he was on Russel’s season so everyone else just kind of disappeared in my memory.) This is the second book I’ve read recently where someone wrote extensively about a relationship that ended. I think it’s hard to take what’s said about the person at face value. Ultimately, this is a relationship that ended and there was likely a lot of finger pointing about who should take responsibility. In writing her book, Shallow is giving her side which will, understandably, show her in a positive light. How much John is ultimately responsible isn’t something I’m going to pass judgement on.
Parvati takes center stage in this memoir and it was fun to see her grow and change. She’s appeared on US Survivor three times and I liked seeing how she told her story about how she was growing and changing between those public appearances. Since I watched all three of her seasons in a short time and not as they came out, I felt like she grew up very quickly but I can see from this story that it was a long and complicated process. I think she’s very brave to live in such a public eye and I have a lot of respect for what she’s done.
There wasn’t a lot in Parvati’s story that I could relate to. Her childhood was overshadowed by the cult her parents were a part of and her adult life has been lived in a very public eye- two things I’m happy to say I haven’t experienced. I admire the community of strong women she’s built around herself, but it’s not something I’ve been able to do for myself. One of the things I like about memoirs is getting to explore something so different from my own life and in that sense, this book delivered.
I watched Shallow most recently on the second season of The Traitors and I enjoyed her discussion of that appearance and how stressful it was for her. I could tell that the different game format was a completely different approach for her and I’m glad she discussed that. I enjoy watching shows like The Traitors and The Challenge that have Survivor players who have to adapt to different challenges. It’s fun to see who thrives and who burns up fast.
I thought the end of the book was a bit of a disappointment. One of the hard things about writing a memoir is knowing when to end it. Most memoirs are written a while past when someone becomes famous and covering that time between when they become known and when they become who they are when writing is tricky. There wasn’t a lot in Shallow’s recent life that felt related to the earlier parts of her story. It felt like she’d taken a sharp left turn to get to a new place and then wrote the book. She didn’t have a lot of time in her life that she’d been in this new place so there wasn’t much reflection that helped relate it back to where she’d been before. It felt like an odd place to leave off after what I’d read up until that point.
Shallow narrated the audiobook which I think is always the right call with a memoir. The passions someone gives their own story are just so much stronger than what anyone else would give it. Shallow has a great way of using her voice to inject playfulness and she was able to display that well in this recording. I’m not sure she could narrate any other book, but she was the perfect choice to do her own audiobook.
Parvati put a lot of herself into the public eye and it’s easy to see why it’s hard to live with that. She’s found a way to feel strong and at peace and I applaud her for that. It hasn’t been an easy journey and she showed a lot of the turbulence along the way in this book. I applaud her for finding her power and focus again after being pushed around so much.
Writer’s Takeaway: This book made me think about memoir a lot more. Is there a right time for a celebrity memoir? At the peak of fame can serve some purpose, giving a backstory as to how the person arrived where they are. In old age or retirement is another option, being able to look at the full journey. But there are misses with both of these. With the first, a miss of what comes while the person is still in the limelight. With the later, a miss of interest as someone might fade into obscurity. But finding the perfect middle ground is a guess. I think Shallow took a good guess based on her continued appearances on reality competition shows. It felt to me like there was more to her current chapter in life and I wish she’d waited just a bit longer to be able to close it before writing this book.
An enjoyable read for a big Survivor fan like me. Three out of Five Stars
Until next time, write on.
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Nice Girls Don’t Win: How I Burned It All Down to Claim My Power – Parvati Shallow | Nad’s Book Nook
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