Hayley DeRoche

Steve Thomas: Hayley, welcome to the podcast.

Hayley DeRoche: Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Steve Thomas: Before we get into the book, you are a public librarian. How did you get started in the field? What drew you to the field?

Hayley DeRoche: I have been in libraries for about 15 years now. I originally became really interested in it just being a giant nerd. I grew up homeschooled, and so when you’re homeschooled, a lot of times you just grow up in the library. You have a lot of programs there. I had theater practice in their meeting room. So it’s just a second home to me, and then I majored in college in English, and as everyone knows, that’s just a direct pipeline.

Steve Thomas: Exactly. Yeah, it’s funny, whenever I talk to anybody about this on the podcast, nobody ever says, “When I was a kid, I wanted to be a librarian when I grew up.” It just, it comes up later.

Hayley DeRoche: I wanted to be either a writer for American Girl magazine, rest in peace, or a dolphin trainer.

Steve Thomas: Oh, wow!

Hayley DeRoche: But I guess third on the list became librarian after those two were unfortunately not as attainable as I thought.

Steve Thomas: Maybe the fame you’ll get from this, you can revive American Girl magazine…

Hayley DeRoche: Yes …

Steve Thomas: …and feature a story about dolphins? I don’t know.

Hayley DeRoche: Yeah. I’ll come full circle.

Steve Thomas: How does the day-to-day work of being a librarian shape how you see parents for things like your TikToks and this book? Does that inform the different ways of parenting that you see?

Hayley DeRoche: To be honest, I’ve siloed my two very different personalities. My library branch manager personality versus my TikTok personality. So they don’t overlap as much in real life as people might think, although it definitely happens where people come into the library and look at me funny, and I have to be like, “Are you on the internet?”

But I do see a lot of families who come in. We have really busy story times at my branch, and so it does just give me this little peek into what’s happening with younger children’s aesthetics and, just like what they’re checking out and stuff like that, even though my kids are 9 and 11, so I’m not really in that world personally right now. So it’s informative.

Steve Thomas: Despite the stereotypes, libraries are really places where kids can be loud and colorful, almost like the opposite of the sad beige aesthetic.

Hayley DeRoche: We are places, we are so full of joy. My friend Mychal the Librarian talks so much about library joy, and it really is a thing. We love to have kids come in. We know they’re messy. We know they’re loud. We love them because of it, not despite it.

Steve Thomas: Yes, exactly. For people who may not have heard of it before, how would you describe the sad beige aesthetic?

Hayley DeRoche: I would describe the sad beige aesthetic as a blend of maybe the Olsen Twins, The Row, and then you’ve got the Kardashians, and then you’ve got Waldorf and Montessori aesthetics. And then you just have kind of internet culture as a whole, particularly with influencers really grabbing onto those aesthetics at the same time. So you’ve got this weird combination of all of these things going on.

Steve Thomas: Yeah, and they swirl together, and how did you get started doing your videos about it? Was it just a one-off thing that took off really well…?

Hayley DeRoche: Yes, essentially. So I was originally doing foster care advocacy content, where I was talking about, like, the social aspects of foster care, like the laws, things people may not realize about it, this is what ICWA is all about, and things like that. And then when my own family’s story shifted to adoption and away from foster care, I was like, I don’t really wanna make content about adoption, because that’s very personal, whereas when you talk about foster care, you’re really talking about legal systems that are in place, and those are things that you can talk about broadly. So I was really looking for a way to pivot my content at that time.

And then I was shopping for a baby gift for a baby shower online, as one does, and I came across these rainbow… they weren’t rainbow. They were beige stacking cups, so like those little stacking rings and stacking cups that babies use in the bath, and normally they’re rainbow colors, but this particular set was very beige and bland, and they were just the saddest things I’ve ever seen. And so I was just thinking to myself okay, if I were making a fake children’s brand, who would the worst possible spokesperson? And obviously, famous nihilistic German filmmaker Werner Herzog came to mind as he does for everyone who’s not normal.

So I just made this off joke, and it just took off. And when opportunity presents itself, you take it and run with it. And I’ve always been a comedy writer prior to that, so I was able to just pivot, and it went really well, and I’ve been having a great time.

Steve Thomas: A one-off joke can be funny and you laugh at it, but what do you think it tapped into to be such a big viral thing? Culturally, what was it tapping into for people?

Hayley DeRoche: I think everyone was swimming in that beige milieu to a certain extent, but no one had really called it out, I think, at that point. Once you call something out, it’s like when you get a new car and suddenly everybody has your car and you didn’t notice it before.

So I think it tapped into that, and especially when the brands that I was roasting were all really high-end, but they’re presenting these very homespun, farmer trousers, but they’re made out of velvet, that type of thing, where it’s like these are very out of touch with the normal person’s life and budget.

So I think that also tapped into something, where you see something that’s been commandeered away from the common peasant and turned into something really luxury. The same thing has happened with Montessori to a certain extent because Montessori education was begun by Maria Montessori, who started it to educate poor children, and now it’s really become this almost status symbol of the elite, where if you can afford a good Montessori school, that’s costing you a lot. There are some that are public, but that’s pretty rare in my experience. In America they’re often very expensive, very privatized. And so I think it just tapped into that frustration as well, and it was just hitting a lot of different things at the same time that kind of emphasized that particular content.

Steve Thomas: Can you think of what was one of the more extreme examples of the aesthetic that you’ve seen?

Hayley DeRoche: Yes, absolutely. The one I always point to is definitely the velvet farmer trousers because the ads that went with them were this child standing on rocky crags and then out in a field and you can see these old French villas way off in the distance. It’s like, it’s so wildly out of touch with reality. First of all, no farmer is going to dress their child in velvet trousers that cost like $90. I have a friend who is a sheep farmer, absolutely not. It’s just this weird kind of retelling the story of what like farming is, what working class life is.

There was another brand that was using like really old vintage schoolhouse equipment, like old desks and old books that were clearly peeling with paint. But if these same children who were dressed up in $200 pinafores sitting in these seats actually had to go to a school that was crumbling, I think people would be up in arms because the people who are buying those clothes would never send their children to a school that was crumbling like that, but it looks really good and cute in the photos to be like, “Oh, they’re homespun and simple,” but it’s not.

Steve Thomas: How many videos have you done? Do you even know at this point?

Hayley DeRoche: I think I made upwards of about 100 maybe of the Sad Beige Werner Herzog videos. There are some that, you film them once, they’re okay, but there are some that just rise to the top as fan favorites that way more people have seen than others. There are some that have been on CNN more than others. So as I’ve gone along, I’ve been able to winnow down to my classics, but it definitely takes a lot of time, takes a lot of work to build a brand like that, for sure.

Steve Thomas: Yeah, that’s what I was gonna ask next. Once you realize you wanna keep doing this, it becomes harder to really construct it and do you have to think about it more? Because you probably didn’t put as much work into the first one as you do into these later ones now when you were just going by gut, but now you have to kinda try to capture the same magic over and over again.

Hayley DeRoche: Yeah, and I think that’s something that’s really difficult in content creation as a whole, because particularly the algorithms right now really wanna pigeonhole you. They want to silo you into doing one joke forever and ever. It’s like The Simpsons joke with Bart having to say his joke forever until he got so sick of it.

I’m a creative person. I’ve done a lot in my life creatively before this and after this. So I’ve worked really hard to not do that to myself by doing a lot of poetry content and things that I’m interested now that maybe I wasn’t interested as much in three or four years ago when I was making content. You get good at it, but you also, if you want to be a well-rounded person, I think it’s good to kind of branch out and stretch yourself and try new things, and either your audience comes along with you or they don’t. And for the most part, mine has, which has been really great because if you build a fan base that trusts you to make good content, then they’ll come along with you to a certain extent.

Steve Thomas: Yeah. I think because they’re basically trusting in your ability to entertain them, that’s just the whole social media kind of content deal. You subscribe to this channel because you like this person’s deal, however that is.

Hayley DeRoche: And it’s really tough right now because algorithms are also, they’re making it very difficult for some reason for people who follow content creators to actually see that content after they follow. It’s very strange, so you do have to work at it. But I think also being well-rounded means that you reach more people. And it just keeps you creatively engaged too. If I just made the single sad beige joke forever, I don’t think that I would evolve and grow and become sharper.

Steve Thomas: It’s good to keep the variety too because then if you come up with a good, funny, new sad beige joke, you can throw it in there. It’s not just, let me crank out this week’s new sad beige joke,” and…

Hayley DeRoche: Yeah, exactly. I do tend to still go with my gut though, to be honest, when I make them. I will just riff for, you know, 30 minutes, and then I’ll just winnow it down to the best ones. You have to tap into the spirit.

Steve Thomas: Obviously you didn’t expect it to be such a huge hit when you first started it, but do you like the fact that it’s sparked real conversations about parenting culture and consumerism and capitalism and all this stuff?

Hayley DeRoche: Yes. Yes. I really love that I’ve been able to talk about the deeper things, like the way that your algorithm, as soon as your algorithm figures out that you’re going to be a parent, for example, it will just throw all of this consumption at you. “You have to buy this if you’re going to be a good parent. You have to buy this. Don’t you love your baby? Then you have to get them this $9,000 crib. Otherwise, you hate your baby. Their life is already ruined.”

What I talk about in my book is I honestly feel like I got to play a little trick with publishing because, I put out this sweet little baby book, but inside I’m also talking about consumerism and marketing and algorithms that are designed to make you feel like a worse parent than you are if you don’t buy. I love that I was able to get that out there, and I think that’s what sets it apart too, is that I’m not shying away from the fact that is a real part of parenting that causes people a lot of anxiety.

Steve Thomas: And I think as much as there’s some criticism in there, it’s not being mean to the people who take part in this. There’s empathy toward people who wanna be part of the culture. Everybody wants to be kind of part of the culture in some way.

Hayley DeRoche: Exactly. Yeah. There’s some gentle ribbing, but I do not hate people who like beige or anything like that. We all like what we like. I think what I really dislike more is more the marketing angle or making people feel bad if they don’t conform in that way. So that’s really what I take aim at more than individual parents. Although I do make a little fun here and there.

Steve Thomas: And I think you said there have been people who have written to you or just commented and stuff of “Oops, there, I see myself in that!” You can take a joke about yourself.

Hayley DeRoche: Yeah, totally. Totally. As a librarian, people make jokes about librarians all the time and you just kinda have to take it on the chin.

Steve Thomas: Yep. Yep. We just sit around reading all the time. That’s us.

Hayley DeRoche: Oh, yeah. That’s us. Yep. No work here.

Steve Thomas: Shh. Yeah, be quiet. Shh.

You have that idea in the book that following an aesthetic like this is really a way for parents to have some control, especially when they’re planning in advance, that if they just set up the nursery exactly right, it’s all with good intention of wanting to set their child on the best path.

Hayley DeRoche: Absolutely, and I think choosing an aesthetic is definitely a way to feel powerful in a situation where otherwise you are powerless. Is your baby a good sleeper? That’s a roll of the dice. You really don’t have a whole lot of power in that. All of the stuff surrounding babies is really just something that you don’t have control over, and so I think when you suddenly feel that powerlessness, latching onto something that does give you a sense of control and power, even if it’s in just like a single bedroom, of course people are going to do that.

Steve Thomas: Yeah. If only I can have, what’s the color, a mushroom cap colored sheets on their bed, then everything will be fine.

Hayley DeRoche: And like I think it’s easy also to find one thing that you just gravitate towards, and you’re like you almost hyperfocus of “If I can solve this one thing, then everything else, it might be terrible, but this one thing I’ve solved.”

I had a woven wrap that I discovered online that was like a limited edition and I was like, “I have to find it. I have to find this. Through all these buy, sell, trade groups, I’m gonna find it.” And I did, and it did not solve my problems, but it was very pretty.

Steve Thomas: What was the biggest challenge to you expanding this from a less than a minute TikTok to a full-length book?

Hayley DeRoche: I think my experience as a comedy writer really helped me with that to a certain extent. I’ve had pieces in McSweeney’s and other places before. So I was able to guide the book that direction pretty easily, but I was also writing it on a very tight deadline. I had about four months to put this book together. So I holed up in a little tiny house up in the mountains for a week and got like a first draft. You know, you write not so sober, but then you edit sober.

Steve Thomas: One of the ways you fill out the book, there’s essays, there’s quizzes, there’s poems and various things throughout, different ways to break it up, the advice column…

Hayley DeRoche: Dear Abyss.

Steve Thomas: Yes, the Dear Abyss column. Yes. That’s very funny.

Hayley DeRoche: I had so much fun with that too, because it really gave me this place to both be a little bit silly, but also serious. That’s something I tried to do throughout the book. We’ll have some laughs, but I wanted people to walk away with it feeling better about themselves and like their parenthood journey than they did when they started it.

Steve Thomas: And did writing this longer form book, did that change the way that you had to think about the voice of the author of that, that you can’t just do the Werner Herzog voice for 200 pages?

Hayley DeRoche: No. I made the conscious decision to not just do Werner Herzog jokes, partially because he is a real person, and so you do have to tread carefully. He’s been very gracious. I know that he knows I exist, but he’s been very gracious about it, so you never want to, overstep on that. So there’s very little mention of Herzog specifically in the book. It’s just alluded to. And it is my own voice, because ultimately that’s who’s writing the book, is me, and so people like the joke, but if they like the joke, then they like me.

Steve Thomas: Yep. You might be saying it in a funny voice, but it’s still you doing it.

Hayley DeRoche: It’s still me. Yes.

Steve Thomas: You had mentioned a couple of reactions that you’ve had. Are there any other like memorable reactions you’ve had from people who’ve seen early copies of the book or just from the videos in general?

Hayley DeRoche: I think it’s been really funny because I’ve been doing a lot of poetry content lately, and, like, the Werner Herzog stuff really began to go viral in 2021, and then a year later in 2022 it went viral on Instagram after TikTok. So I kinda had two waves, of virality with that. And then, as I’ve moved on and written more comedy stuff, I have gotten those new people, so to then have the original people come back and see this content in a new way has been really fun. But it’s also been very almost challenging because when you’re doing something that’s so different and suddenly you have to rewind and be like, “Hey, guys, I know this is crazy, but I’ve been doing poetry, but I’m actually also the person who does this.”

And there have definitely been a lot of people who are like mind blown, did not realize that you were the same person at all because obviously I have a different normal voice, and they don’t see me on the screen with the Werner Herzog stuff, then unless you’re paying really good attention to a username, you’re really not going to realize.

So that’s been a bit of a challenge, but also very funny when people do realize it’s me, and also very funny that a lot of people genuinely thought I made Werner Herzog up. They thought this was a made-up character. A made-up name that I had just thrown out there as a silly, goofy German man, and I’ve had to explain to people, I’m like, “No, this is a satire of a very real artist whose work is incredible. You should go watch his films.” But it is very funny to me to have that reaction when people suddenly are putting these pieces together and you see it happening in real time. It’s very funny.

Steve Thomas: Yeah, it’s funny as as famous as he is that so many people don’t know, ’cause I know people in my family, when we watched like The Mandalorian or something, and then they were like, “That guy who was like the bad guy,” “You mean Werner Herzog?” They’re like, “Who is that?” I was like, “He’s, like, really famous!” He doesn’t just collect little baby Yodas.

Hayley DeRoche: He truly is an artist. He clearly just takes the jobs he wants to take, and like, good for him. He’s not too serious about himself.

Steve Thomas: No, I don’t think so. No, I think he has that persona, and I think he is obviously very intense, but I heard him on Conan O’Brien’s podcast, I think, and he was talking about that he watches ” Honey Boo Boo.”

Hayley DeRoche: Yes, “Honey Boo Boo.” And like he loves skateboarders. He’s a well-rounded artist. I mean, that’s what I aspire to be as well, someday.

Steve Thomas: Really at the heart of the book, like I said, you’re not being mean, you are being funny, but there’s a reassuring message in there that it’s okay. It’s okay that there’s this thing out there that you can try to get to, but it’s okay. What are you trying to get through to readers in the book? What would you like readers to take away from the book?

Hayley DeRoche: I think that it’s really fun to be in total control when you’re a parent of your child, and make all of these plans for them, and dress them the way that you want them to be dressed, but that goes away. I think that it can be really scary to lose that control. “Oh, there’s so much that I just have no power over anymore.” It’s slipping away as your child enters like, elementary school and then middle school. But it’s also this opportunity to see them grow into like their whole self, and that is such a joy.

So to be able to shed the initial baby aesthetic, like moving past that into this new world of having an older kid who’s like growing into who they are. I think you can either mourn that or you can embrace it. I really hope that people embrace it and just feel, not sad over the loss of power, but excited because the kids who you have in all of their messiness are the kids that you have, and like dressing them differently, giving them screens or not giving them screens, all of this stuff falls away at some point, and you’re just in the whole new world. And like it’s fun. It’s scary, but it’s fun.

Steve Thomas: Yeah. It’s fun getting to know these new little people and watching them learn who they are.

Hayley DeRoche: Yeah. And like you do lose the ability to be like the main influencer in your child’s life. That goes away. Sometimes I see folks who seem really protective of that, that they want to read every book that their child is reading or watch every movie before their child watches it, and it just becomes unrealistic at a certain point to do that.

Your child enters the world and they become influenced by friends and teachers and just all of the other people who they come in contact with. If you help them build a firm foundation of being confident in themselves and able to come to you if they have questions, I think you have to let go a little bit and trust that, yeah, they’re gonna see some media that might not be perfect. They might pull a book off a shelf that maybe is a little mature for them. My son gravitates to manga, so that’s close to my heart, like would I choose these for him? No, but it’s not harming him. It’s not what I would choose, but it’s not doing harm. And just embracing that they’re gonna love stuff you hate, and that’s okay.

Steve Thomas: Yep yep. And usually when it’s with the kids, it’s they embrace something that you hate, and then they wanna watch it over and over again.

Hayley DeRoche: Oh, yeah, entirely. Oh my God. The amount of just awful stuff that I’ve had to consume. Oh my God.

Steve Thomas: I do appreciate that there’s actual, it seems like more effort put into like the quality of children’s entertainment now at least. ‘Cause I look at stuff when I was growing up, I was like, “This is complete garbage!”

Hayley DeRoche: I will watch Bluey. I’ll just cheer up a little bit, like nothing dusty happening over here, and right now I’m reading Goosebumps to my son every night before bed, which, you envision this lovely time of reading the classics to your child in bed. We’re gonna read Winnie-the-Pooh and all of this stuff, and then they ask you to read Dog Man for months. And out of sheer desperation, because I was like, I cannot keep reading graphic novels where it’s just sound effects and dialogue. I just can’t do it. I just can’t do it. I was like, ” What about Goosebumps?” And now I’m 40 books in. So I’m an expert.

Steve Thomas: Now you’re reading about dummies coming back, being alive.

Hayley DeRoche: Oh, Slappy. The Slappyverse is alive and well.

But like you do just kinda have to accept the fact that you’re doing this stuff for them and not for you.

Steve Thomas: Yeah. As a fun question, if you had to design a Sad Beige Story Time, what would the vibe be of that kind of thing?

Hayley DeRoche: Oh, I think we’d have to have, we’d have to do a mushroom dance, first of all. So it would be a mushroom dance where we would all dance in a circle. We’d make a little fairy ring and then we would play with some acorns. We would all pick a nature name, so everybody would choose their special flower name or maybe their tree name, and then maybe we’d all close our eyes and think about eggshells. I’m sure we could read, we could probably read the crayon book about the crayons quitting ’cause I think there’s some Sad Beige in there.

Steve Thomas: Oh, I think there is. Yeah. No, okay, there you go.

Hayley DeRoche: There is one, yes. Somebody pointed it out to me and I was like, ” We arrived at the same thing.”

Steve Thomas: Poor beige. Beige is just sad.

Hayley DeRoche: Beige. Ugh, it’s my own fault. Sorry, Beige.

Steve Thomas: So what’s next for you? Do you have any books in the future you’d like to write?

Hayley DeRoche: Right now I am putting together a potential poetry kind of chapbook manuscript because I’ve had a lot of those pieces go viral in the poetry world, which is crazy, totally different audience. And I have started a practice of just writing a poem a day at the end of the day when I’m in bed, and that’s been really great for my creative practice, so I’m really leaning into that, putting that together.

Books take a long time. Usually you don’t have four months, usually it takes a lot longer than that. But I’m really excited for that, and if that works out, that’s amazing. And if it doesn’t, who knows? I’ve had a couple books just in my arsenal. Maybe I’ll go back to those and start refining. I don’t know. You don’t have to just do one thing. You can do one thing, and be really good at it, and then look at other things and be good at them, too. So I’m hopeful about poetry, but open to whatever the universe offers.

Steve Thomas: And if listeners wanna follow you on your socials, where can they follow you?

Hayley DeRoche: On Instagram, I am @officialsadbeige. And on TikTok, I am @sadbeige.

And then my website is hayleyderoche.com, but the Instagram and TikTok are the best places to find me.

Steve Thomas: I am sorry somebody took “sadbeige” from you on Instagram.

Hayley DeRoche: I know. It was very sad, but alas.

Steve Thomas: Hayley, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Hayley DeRoche: This was a joy.

***

Yaika Sabat: Hello, and welcome back to The Circ Desk. I’m Yaika Sabat, a NoveList librarian who creates content focused on helping libraries connect with and help readers.

April Mazza: And I’m April Mazza, a NoveList librarian, and I work on our continuing education courses for Learn with NoveList, along with Yaika.

Yaika Sabat: Yep. It’s a good team. We’ve just finished listening to Steve talk with author Hayley DeRoche, so we want to share some readalike options for Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe: A Handbook for the Sad Beige Parent. And I have to say, as someone familiar with the “sad beige parent” trend on social media, I do laugh a little every time I read the title because it’s just perfect.

April, do you wanna kick things off and share your two read-alikes first?

April Mazza: Sure. And yeah, I also can’t help but hear that title in Hayley’s imitation of Werner Herzog’s voice.

Yaika Sabat: Yes!

April Mazza: And she does narrate the audiobook, so I think listeners will catch a bit of that there as well.

Yaika Sabat: Quick tip: if you haven’t heard the Werner Herzog “sad beige parent” memes or videos, you have to do that. They’re perfect.

April Mazza: Yeah. Run to Instagram.

So my first book is Cry When the Baby Cries by Becky Barnicoat, which I chose partly because it is a graphic novel, and Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe has illustrations, so I wanted to start with that vibe. I also find graphic novel memoirs really compelling and relatable. It’s like you get to be right there with the creator and go through what they’re going through in that moment. And in Cry When the Baby Cries, you are right there in the midst of being a new parent along with Becky. It’s messy and honest, but there’s also a lot of warmth. And Dress Your Baby, it’s funny. It’s that sort of observational humor that makes you feel like you’re in on the joke. The title itself is a joke about that advice you always hear to nap when the baby naps.

Yaika Sabat: So easy, right?

April Mazza: Yeah, I don’t think that’s happening so much. And I know it’s hard for a new parent to find the time to sit down and read, but I think because this one is a graphic novel, it’s quick to pick up and browse through and have a well-deserved laugh.

Yaika Sabat: I also love graphic novel memoirs and nonfiction because while I do read nonfiction, I definitely read more fiction and as a big graphic novel fan anything in that format is more likely to have me pick it up. So I do love a good nonfiction graphic novel call-out.

April Mazza: Same. And then my next book is also a memoir about parenting, but in the more traditional sense. It’s called The Mamas: What I Learned About Kids, Class, and Race from Moms Not Like Me by Washington Post reporter Helena Andrews-Dyer. The Mamas is about her experiences as a Black woman in a mostly white motherhood support group, also called The Mamas. So definitely a more serious approach, but the thread I think between all these books is honesty. The Mamas is candid, it’s thought-provoking, and very intentional about telling the truth, even when that truth is uncomfortable. Emotionally, it’s very moving, and that made me think it could also be a great book club pick, if you do have maybe, a mom caregiver group, parent book club type thing because I think it will just naturally spark discussion about belonging, identity, and also what community means to you.

Yaika Sabat: Those are some good picks, April. I like those. I like that one has the funny, and one is a little bit more, I don’t know, a little more in-depth, a little bit more serious potentially.

When I was looking for a couple of readalike picks, I wanted to focus on the social media angle. The sad beige parent is a social media trend. And also particularly look at the pressures that new parents and mothers specifically face when raising a child. So when I was searching, I did use NoveList Plus, which surprises not a single soul alive, and I basically decided to use the subjects like motherhood, parenting, expectation, and then different appeals from Dress Your Baby and Sage and Taupe to find some options. I did things like combinations of motherhood and parenting, plus funny or amusing moods, or, as you’ll see in my second pick, I translated the humor of Hayley DeRoche’s book into fiction books that were satires or parodies about mothers, parenting, and also influencers. And that’s how I came to my two picks today. The nice thing about searching in NoveList if you’re on a books page there’s a section called About This Book, and you can click all the different story elements you want and then find searches that way. And that was very helpful when I was trying to find the perfect mix and match for this situation.

April Mazza: It’s really fun to do the mix and match and see what you get.

Yaika Sabat: Oh, I have so much fun. I have the most fun doing the mix and match. Sometimes I do things that are way too specific, and you’ll get two matches, but they’re perfect. But it’s still fun to click all the buttons and see what happens.

My first suggestion is another nonfiction title that focuses on the ideal closely curated images and influences that people see on social media, especially about parenting, and why it’s important to realize just how intentional and often false those images are. So I’m starting with Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture by Sarah Petersen. This one’s from 2023. Sarah Petersen is a journalist, and in this she takes a deep look at the very polished and pervasive world of mommy influencer culture by mixing her own personal reflection with cultural critique and that journalistic style of reporting. She does have interviews with influencers, with academics, and with other experts, and unpacks how social media, especially Instagram, has turned motherhood into both a performance and a method of marketing because many of the momfluencers are often doing sponsored ads or doing deals with partners.

And, it looks at the fact that these images, the curated images of the perfect designed, spotless home, always happy children, super fulfilled women, has lended to this sort of aspirational idea that’s rooted in consumerism and also very traditional family structures. And a lot of mothers end up internalizing this. So I appreciate that this book is giving a perceptive critique of the impact of momfluencers while still being accessible and amusing. Like Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe, it combines humor, and it also focuses on certain parts of social media in the sad beige parent trend in Hayley’s book, and in this one the different types of momfluencers, everything from the sort of trad moms to the cool moms, which makes me think of Mean Girls and how it impacts parents. Both of these books also touch on the idea that parents should maybe let go of some of this pressure and trust themselves more as parents instead of holding themselves up to an ideal. And I will say, in Momfluenced, Sarah Peterson does also touch on some of the more diverse and reality-driven voices that have started to push back on this. And I think it’s important ’cause, yeah, honesty is not always the case on social media, and so it’s important to stay firmly rooted in what life is actually like.

Then for my second pick, I wanted to offer a fiction option because I think when you’re looking for options that a reader might enjoy, it’s easy to focus just on nonfiction if the reader usually reads nonfiction. But I’ve found that often readers are open to fiction that has similar appeals or topics. So I like to have at least one fiction book that they might like.

So my second pick is The Guilt Pill by Samya Dave from 2025. In The Guilt Pill, Dave blends really sharp social satire with the tensions of psychological suspense to look at the impossible standards placed on modern women. The main character, Maya, appears to have achieved the elusive sort of “have it all.” She has a thriving startup, a supportive husband, a new baby, and a very polished public persona. But behind the scenes, she is unraveling under the pressure of those expectations put on her as a mother, as an entrepreneur, as a daughter of immigrants, a friend, and a wife. So when a charismatic fellow CEO introduces her to an experimental guilt pill that’s designed to erase the self-doubt and pressure that hold women back, Maya initially finds huge relief and sort of steps into this more confident, unapologetic version of herself. But as we know, there’s usually side effects. So as the pill’s effects intensify, the boundaries of her identity, relationships, and ambitions begin to fall away, which raises some unsettling questions about what it is we lose when we try to chemically escape systemic pressures.

This novel gives a really thought-provoking, sharp look at ambition, motherhood, and the cultural forces shaping guilt, particularly for women of color and also has really sympathetic characters. And while this is not humorous, like Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe, and it is a fiction book, I do think it would work well for readers who are interested in that sort of examination of expectations on mothers and women in general that is found in Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe. So it might seem a little off the beaten path, but I could see it working really well for some fans.

April Mazza: I do too. I think, again, there’s like a commonality between all these books, and a lot of it does have to do about the pressure, especially for the moms and mom figures out there to live up to certain expectations, be a certain way, and you always have an audience.

Yaika Sabat: Exactly, yes. And with The Guilt Pill I’m not a mother, but I think many people, women or not, if you have this idea of ” I can take this pill and not have, the pressure, anxiety….”

April Mazza: Yeah. I was very intrigued by this pill. Such a dreamy concept, but there are always gonna be side effects.

Yaika Sabat: So that is all we have today. That’s it from us at The Circ Desk, but we will check you out next time!