Illustration by Kate Gavino for Catapult
Is “Paris Syndrome” a Real Thing?
When you don’t have sky-high expectations for Paris to begin with, the disillusionment you find in the City of Light is much more nuanced.
Kate Gavino is the creator of the blog and book, Last Night's Reading. Her work has been featured in Buzzfeed, The Guardian, O Magazine, Rookie, the Paris Review Daily, and Brooklyn Magazine.
More by this author
Living in Paris, I’m Just Another American—and the French Don’t Seem to Mind
My life as an American in Paris is a far cry from what the glamorous direct-to-DVD movies make it out to be. Still, that’s the story I tell.
Jan 15, 2020
My Parents’ Cemetery Selfies
“It’s jarring to scroll through and see a cemetery selfie.”
Sep 13, 2016
More in this series
What If We Cultivated Our Ugliness? or: The Monstrous Beauty of Medusa
“Medusa’s ugliness grew and grew, becoming something greater than herself but still part of her legend.”
May 23, 2017
Claim Your Complexity: The Monstrous Upheaval of the Chimera
“When you’ve spent all your life smothering your contradictions, their eruption can undo you.”
Jun 27, 2017
切ない (Setsunai): When You Need a Word to Hold Both Sorrow and Joy
‘Setsunai’ implies something once bright, now faded. It is the painful twinge at the edge of a memory, the joy in the knowledge that everything is temporary.
Feb 26, 2018
