Nice girls don't win How I burned it all down to claim my power

Survivor winner Shallow recounts her personal struggles and reality TV successes in this diverting memoir. When Shallow and two of her friends auditioned for The Amazing Race in the mid-2000s, a casting director asked her which friend could actually help her win: " dangled the keys to the kingdom and all I had to do to claim my castle was drop-kick my baby bird bestie out of the nest and watch her land with a thump." She did just that, shocking her friends but failing to book the show; instead, CBS called her back for season four of Survivor. Much of the book focuses on Shallow's four stints on that show, where she excelled by adopting the same cutthroat attitude she brought to her Amazing Race audition. Yet the cold and calculating mindset she adopted for Survivor came at a cost, setting in motion "a vicious internal spiral of self-loathing." Elsewhere, Shallow discusses key episodes in her personal life, including her childhood in a cultlike Florida commune and a series of failed romantic relationships. Throughout, Shallow is a charming, candid narrator, dispensing behind-the-scenes Survivor tidbits and sturdy self-love advice with equal aplomb. This is a treat for reality TV fans. Agent: Monika Verman, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (July)

A reality television star and cult survivor bounces back. Shallow's parents first attempted to escape from a commune run by a cruel and abusive religious zealot when Shallow was 2 months old. They finally left for good when Shallow was in elementary school. The author believes that in adulthood, the chaos of her early years fueled her instinct to constantly flee any and all difficulty and to hesitate to find stability. She writes, "I would gloss over pain, bounce from relationship to relationship, move constantly, often donating everything I owned to Goodwill, and never settle in one place for long." This affinity for change follows her into her stints on the television showSurvivor, where she wins theFans vs. Favorites season and, a few years later, is cast as a villain in theHeroes vs. Villains season, a characterization that took her by surprise. The pressures of these shows, the intense emotions surrounding her short marriage, and her brother's untimely death as a result of his struggle with addiction all tax her nervous system. As a result, Shallow commits to somatic therapy, a healing practice that helps her find love in a new, queer relationship with a nonbinary comic and allows her to reenter reality television--as a cast member onThe Traitors--without losing her sense of self. Shallow's narratorial voice is intimate and honest and feels like she's in conversation with a close friend. The prose is sometimes unpolished, but the book's fast pace and clear narrative arc make this a quick read. A reality star's enjoyable memoir about finding healing. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.