Paris, Baby! by Kirsten Lobe

Paris, Baby by Kirsten Lobe

Paris, Baby by Kirsten Lobe

Publisher: Griffin, 352 pages

Publication Date: May 24, 2011

Summary:

Is it possible to maintain chic as a single-mom-to-be in a city where it’s all supposed to be effortless and breastfeeding is a horreur?  Does one live by the Parisienne’s pregnancy plan of smoking, drinking, and cheese-eating avec vin blanc, but jamais jamais gain more than six kilos? And how to handle a pickup attempt by a married man in the baby department of Bon Marché when you’re eight months along?  After all, American girls do things differently: Lamaze class and baby showers, sensible prenatal care and…family to watch you proudly grow more and more pregnant.

Paris is full of delights for a new mom: the Luxembourg Gardens, baby boutiques too precious to be passed by, a petit brioche for a teething tot.  But home exerts a powerful pull. Should your child grow up skipping by the Seine or scampering up a tree house?  Should it be “Mommy” or “Maman”? And can a tall blonde with a taste for Veuve Cliquot and Vuitton ever make it in the land of mom jeans and Happy Meals?

Paris, Baby! is novelist Kirsten Lobe’s warm, funny memoir about Paris, Frenchmen, friendship, babies, and making it on one’s own.

Review:

Let me just say this, anyone who reads this memoir will love Kirsten Lobe (also known as Kiki). She is delightful as the narrator of her personal journey through life as a pregnant woman in France. The snag in what sounds like a magical fairytale is that Kiki is a single, expectant mom. She is facing this new and somewhat terrifying world alone but she does so with grace, dignity and humor. What I love so much about Kiki is her attitude. She really seems to have adopted the French je ne sais quoi. She uses humor and charm to tell her stories and gives them a lightness that is so refreshing and unexpected. She talks about her mother battling alzheimer’s and her sister’s issues with infertility and yet it is not a woe-is-me tale. It is actually quite an upbeat, enjoyable, inspiring memoir. If Elizabeth Gilbert had a completely fascinating and glamorous cousin living in Paris, it would be Kirsten Lobe. She is one of those women who truly looks for the silver lining and always finds it. I loved Kiki and hope she continues her writing career with more memoirs of her fabulous life.