Others Like Me

October 1, 2024

Childless or child-free women are often stereotyped as deficient or incapable of love. In this debut book, Louie shares that she knew that she did not want children, and she had difficulty finding positive examples of other women who led childless or child-free lives. Her book begins with her childhood in Brazil and shows how her decision to not have children was shaped by her relationships, particularly with her own mother. Louie interviews other women who do not have children for various reasons. The subjects are mainly in their thirties and forties and comprise a variety of nationalities. They relate their reasons for not having children; the effect that it has on their relationships with family, partners and others; and the realities of their lives without children. Louie recounts her own acceptance of living a child-free life after the dissolution of her marriage, followed by her efforts to advocate for childless and child-free women. She also offers a resource list of books and other media on the topic. VERDICT A recommended and affirming account of the lives of childless and child-free women.--Rebekah Kati

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 30, 2024
Essayist Louie debuts with an introspective memoir exploring her decision not to have children and recapping the stories of other women who made the same choice. Louie presents brief, stylized first-person vignettes drawn from interviews with 14 other childless women, who offer up an intriguing range of rationales—among them a lack of maternal urge, a passion for other experiences, asexuality, their own difficult upbringings, and medical conditions—as well as sharp insights into both childlessness and parenthood (“There is of course more freedom without children, but being single takes a lot of time in other ways. Everything is done by one person, there is no sharing of responsibilities... I sometimes wonder if those who are parents are truly selfless”; “I do wonder how this is going to affect me in the future... I try to save money. For better or for worse, we live in a capitalist society, so a part of me thinks, Well, if I have money, I’ll probably be all right”). However, the lion’s share of the book is devoted to Louie’s own experiences—including the dissolution of her marriage, partly due to conflict over having a child—which are narrated in a far more sprawling and less refined way, making for a jarring contrast that is also short on insight. Readers will be left unsatisfied.