She Called It Deeply Relevant. I Will Take That Over Bestseller.

May 16

I sent Dr. Débora Pasin an advanced reader copy of Parenting Unpacked and she came back with this.

"Jessica Gabrielzyk writes with sensitivity, emotional intelligence and a great deal, truly a great deal, of authenticity. Parenting Unpacked gives voice to the silent transformations that accompany parenthood, adaptation and the sense of belonging in times of change. A welcoming, reflective and deeply relevant book for families living through personal, cultural or geographical transitions." — Dr. Débora Pasin, Linguist and PhD Researcher

I read it twice. Then a third time.

Everything I needed someone to take away from the book, she felt the exact thing. Not a version of it.

"Silent transformations." I did not write that phrase. She did. And it is more precise than anything I used to describe what the book is about. The transformations that happen without announcement, without ceremony, without anyone around you noticing that something fundamental is changing. That is the book. That is the whole book in two words.

Dr. Débora Pasin has spent 28 years helping medical and healthcare professionals navigate foreign systems, foreign languages, and foreign versions of themselves. She knows, better than most, what it actually costs to function in a language that is not yours, in a room that was not built for you, trying to be taken seriously by people who do not yet know what you are capable of. She has been doing this work since 1989 and she has a PhD to show for it.

When someone with that specific experience reads Parenting Unpacked and calls it deeply relevant, I am not taking that lightly.

I will take deeply relevant over bestseller.

Parenting Unpacked: Parenting Through the Loss of Self will be available soon on Amazon. Endorsed by Ruth E. Van Reken, co-author of Third Culture Kids. Selected for the SIETAR Europa congress resource pack, Valencia 2026.

Grateful beyond measure,

Jessica Gabrielzyk

Jessica Gabrielzyk

Jessica Gabrielzyk is a Brazilian writer living in Switzerland. She moved there with her husband and daughter, who was three months old at the time and had strong opinions about the whole thing even then.

She writes about change.

The visible kind and the kind that happens inside a person, while everything on the outside looks fine.

Her first book, Maternity Abroad, explored what it means to become a mother far from the system you trusted. It has reached readers in more than fifteen countries across five continents. Parenting Unpacked, her second book, follows the experience of parenting through major life disruption, whether that's an international move, a career loss, a new baby, or a life that simply stops responding the way it used to. My First American Coloring Book was created to help toddlers engage with daily life in the United States through play and familiar imagery.

She is a member of SIETAR, the Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research, and the International Academy of Brazilian Literature.

She writes for the parent who is still inside it, getting through the day, and wondering somewhere underneath all of it who they are becoming.

When she is not writing, she is walking forty minutes uphill with a stroller, telling herself the exercise is the point.

She Called It Deeply Relevant. I Will Take That Over Bestseller.

I Explained My Author Philosophy to a Journalist Yesterday.

She Is Absolutely a Queen.