Reviewed: The Paris Diaries, The Study Abroad Experience Uncensored

The Paris Diaries: At the tender age of 20, blogger Andrea Bouchard relocated from Pennsylvania to Paris for a year of overseas study. As this personal journal reveals, she would learn far more lessons than her Sorbonne University lecturers offered. A frank account of the ups and downs of moving abroad, assimilating into a foreign culture and the daily struggle with a language other than your mother tongue, her diary debunks the rose-tinted myths associated with studying abroad.

In candidly admitting the negative aspects of her experience yet resolving to persevere, Bouchard lights the way for other young students who are preparing to embark on a year abroad – warning of the difficulties ahead but reassuring that they can be overcome. The journal finishes with a few pages of candid advice, with tips on how to make the most of the experience.

Persevere with the negative beginnings of this refreshingly honest book to reach the optimistic ending that awaits.

The Paris Diaries: The Study Abroad Experience Uncensored by Andrea Bouchard, $3.99 e-book via www.twentyinparis.net

Originally reviewed in France Today magazine