recently read: her one regret
plus a seen library collaboration + event this saturday
Knowing what book someone is reading and what parts they resonate with most can be so intimate. It reveals their interests, where their head is at, and what excerpts are so significant that they will mark up a page because they think it’s worth revisiting at a later time. I’m fascinated by what books others gravitate towards and I find that it helps me get to know them better and gives me a small glimpse into who they are at their core. No one asked for these book reviews, but maybe it’s my way of showing who I am and what I’m interested in – beyond the clothes, the products, and my career. Or at the very least, encourage some to look up from their phones and instead towards the pages of a good book.
Book no. 10 of 2025
Perfection - Vincenzo Latronico
About a millennial couple working in the creative field who live a soulless, curated life, dictated by how they want to be perceived on social media.
With that said, I really wanted to like this book! As a millennial who also works in the creative world and specifically in social media, at times I felt like the author was talking to me about me (whew…). The critique about how social media and outward validation influences the way we live is something I find so interesting and true. But I felt the the execution fell flat. At times, the characters felt like obvious caricatures that lacked nuance but maybe it’s because I’m in such close proximity to a world like theirs. It kind of felt repetitive and boring and I was struggling to finish the book even though it’s so short. I’d be interested in reading more books like this one but perhaps one with more depth and dimension.
Underlined quotes:
“They would see themselves from the outside, surrounded by leftover takeaways and scraps of paper, a bathrobe flung over the Danish armchair, and they would feel flawed, like imposters in a grown-up world that would have caught them out already had the webcam lens been any wider.”
“In the future, people would be publicly shamed for any minor slip-up. In the future, being publicly shamed would be so common it would stop being an effective deterrent… Did it interest them because they saw themselves in her? Did it interest them because they saw themselves in her accusers?”
“Warming their hands on a hot mug of genmaicha, they would watch the likes and shares go up and still feel sure they were doing the right thing.”
“But each time, after a while, they would remember those trips more generously, as if the act of remembering could alter the experience itself… and the seductiveness of the images made them forget all the stress that lay just out of frame.”
Book no. 11 of 2025
Her One Regret - Donna Freitas
A mystery thriller that explores the taboo topic of women regretting motherhood. As someone who wasn't sure about becoming a mom and now a new mom myself, I find this topic so important.
I really, really wanted to like this book and chose to read it because I do think the realities of motherhood — including regret — do need to be talked about more and less stigmatized in order to better help people make the decision to become parents and learn what it is about parenthood that is so difficult.
While I do like the premise of the story, I found that the author’s voice was too loud. My friend Chinelo (@interestedinblackbooks) recently told me that a pet peeve of hers when it comes to books is when the author is too present— when you can tell it's their voice, their opinions in the pages. I wasn't sure what she meant until now.
Maybe it's because I am now a mom and biased, but the characters feel like caricatures of what a childfree person thinks life as a mom is like without much nuance or layers. Honestly, what went through the characters’ minds are thoughts I’ve had myself before becoming a mom, but I now see are too black and white. The characters don't act in ways that feel real or normal and feel like pawns for the writer to express her own personal feelings about motherhood and even marriage. And because of that, the writing was just kind of… bad? The story felt repetitive, the dialogue unrealistic, the characters one-dimensional, and the ending all over the place.
I know I sound like a trad wife or something trying to defend motherhood (lol) but I just feel like this story had so much potential and the topic so necessary! The writer hyper-focused on the difficult *feelings* of motherhood, especially as it relates to unsupportive husbands and fathers, and not enough about what causes that — partners who don’t do enough is so important to discuss, but what about a lack of community from family and friends, the mental and physical toll pregnancy and postpartum takes, the lack of paid parental leave and childcare in this country, the capitalistic pressures to work ourselves to the bone all while expecting to be the perfect parent, etc? The things in addition to unsupportive partners that create that barrier to actually enjoy motherhood.
To tackle such a topic, I think the story needed more layers and nuance and less of the author's personal feelings. As I was reading this book, I thought to myself that the author may have done well writing her thoughts in a series of essays instead. And that the reader may benefit more from reading Regretting Motherhood by Orna Donath itself, a book that I had read and appreciated — one that I later learned the author referenced while writing her book, which makes so much sense.
I wouldn’t recommend this book, but think if anyone does want to read explore the topic of regretting motherhood more, that book by Donath is a good start, as well as Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, by Cho Nam-Joo and the book The Second Shift, a book about how women often take a much heavier mental and physical load of marriage and parenthood compared to their male partners.
If anyone has book recs based on this topic, I’d love to know them :)
Underlined quotes:`
“Mama’s here,” she coos, tone strange, like she’s playing the part of someone else on a stage, pretending she’s a real mother.”
“She tries to love him, she does love him, but she’s not sure this love is enough to endure this new life.”
“She knows what it’s like to try to be strong for a child, when you don’t allow yourself to feel so they don’t have to be scared. When you can’t manage to be strong for even one more second but then you do, you manage it. And then you manage it some more.”
“We are still a culture that tells a woman she is wrong to not want a baby, that she will regret not having one. So why are we so surprised — to the point of claiming it’s impossible — that when a woman goes ahead and has the baby she didn’t want in the first place, she might regret it?”
A Seen Library collaboration and upcoming event
Seen Library x Lisa Says Gah is coming February 6, 2026.
Join us Saturday, February 7 from 10am to 12pm at Lisa Says Gah in Los Angeles to celebrate the launch of the collaboration with a FREE Seen Library book with any purchase of the collab tee — while supplies last!
