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.