I'm mostly here to enjoy myself One woman's pursuit of pleasure in Paris

The jubilant latest from MacNicol (No One Tells You This) details her transformative summer in the City of Light. After spending the height of the Covid-19 pandemic anxious and alone in her New York City apartment, a 47-year-old MacNicol jumped at the opportunity to sublet a friend's Paris apartment in 2021. She was eager for a change of scenery and an opportunity to live as "a woman who wasn't required to ask permission. Who could do as she pleased." In Paris, MacNicol ate indulgently, found lovers via dating apps, made new friends, and eventually came to view the city as "a mirror that has allowed me to see my entire self and... tak enormous pleasure in the wholeness of that person." By and large, MacNicol's escapades come across as empowering, though some may wince at her shallow description of the app-facilitated dating world as a "meat market." She's especially incisive when comparing dating at midlife to gaslighting--no matter how good one actually feels, she argues, "everyone and everything" insists that getting older means feeling worse. It adds up to an exhilarating account of finding a new lease of life. Agent: Lucy Carson, Friedrich Agency. (June)

A woman's quest for pleasure in a post-pandemic Paris. In August 2021, MacNicol, author of No One Tells You This, embarked on a journey through Paris in pursuit of radical joy. Unmarried with no children, she longed for a change of scenery and change in pace, and she felt herself grasping for excess after nearly 16 months of isolation in New York City. In Paris, she explored the tourist-free streets, absorbing abundance and light among her new friends and mysterious lovers. Pulling references from literary giants such as Joan Didion and Nora Ephron, MacNicol poses many important questions about what it means to be a woman free of tethers. Finding beauty in the slow moments along the Seine, or passing by the Louvre, she absorbed all that Paris has to offer. She ate delicious food, met handsome men, and had exciting sex, finally allowing herself to feel satisfied. Her story is not without depth. "I look at this young woman, twenty-three years old, and how all her selves have been split up too," she writes about an acquaintance. "Not by isolation, but by too much connection. Too much knowledge. The way that the internet has robbed her of discovery. Of being allowed to not know, to have to find out on your own." Women today are expected to know and be everything, but at what cost? Are your 20s the only acceptable age to grow and evolve? These are only some of the questions MacNicol brings to the table, as she challenges modern expectations of the right to pleasure and enjoyment and being one's true self in an ever-darkening world. Blending humorous commentary and wit with vivid stories of love, lust, and good food, MacNicol generously invites readers into her Parisian paradise. A fun memoir filled to the brim with humor and vulnerability. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.