I Don’t Regret This One

Last year I read Jen Lancaster’s Twisted Sisters and was disappointed. I have always loved Lancaster’s snarky memoirs but her works of fiction have routinely let me down. I am glad I didn’t write her off completely because she hasn’t lost her touch for self deprecating, entertaining non-fiction.

I Regret Nothing is Jen’s journey through her “Bucket List” after realizing at 46-years-old she wasn’t getting any younger. Jen put some big things on her list like learning Italian and traveling to Rome, she also retroactively adds things to her list like Walking a 10k (when her plans to run a 5k fall through) just to cross them out- something the women in my family love to do. Like most of her memoirs she starts with a concept and uses it as a common thread between funny anecdotes. She probably could have just called the book “2014” and had the same result, but I appreciate a theme. As Lancaster gets more well known she loses a little of her street cred; her first book she loses her job & lives on ketchup sandwiches in an apartment without power and now she is talking about deducting a spur of the moment $200 bike purchase from her taxes as a work expense because she can write about it in her book.

Despite her changes in the last 8 years Jen Lancaster is my people. Jen and her husband don’t have kids but they treat their pets better than some people treat their own children; she likes Target, cheap wine and Martha Stewart. She writes with a sarcastic sense of humor and is comfortable laughing at herself. After reading one of her memoirs I always feel like we could be best friends.

The one thing that disappointed me was the lack of Footnotes which were replaced with parentheses that cluttered the pages. After seven memoirs I sort of missed the parentheses; I’m sure she switched up her formula for e-readers but I was sad.