I Love Shopping

by Ren Cook, Lauren Cook

Ren Cook’s I Love Shopping brings the specificities of relationships into relief, creating an expanse in which it is the things which assert that an orchid is different from a scientist or a ballerina are also the characteristics which underpin their commonality. Based in a fantastic world of speakers which could be anyone, Cook invites readers to place themselves inside the minds of the entire population of the world, be it an ancient rock, a child, a rose bush, honeysuckle, or the last of a particular type of orchid, eaten by a skunk in the night.

Genres: Poetry, Transgender, Fiction

59 pages, ebook

First published February 19, 2019

About the author

This author also writes as Lauren Cook

Reviews

[Andre Aguiar]

Temos muitas maneiras de descrever e nomear as coisas que não entendemos. Às vezes, apenas ouvir o que alguém pensa já é religião suficiente para mim.

[Kaya]

This is a book you vibe with. If you’ve ever felt like the internet raised you, or that shopping could be both holy and absurd, you’ll find something here.

Tumblr in print; funny, fragmented, confessional, and unexpectedly profound. It reads like a blog you can’t stop scrolling, full of lol moments that suddenly turn into moments of clarity. Poems? Thoughts? Fragments? All of the above. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I know I loved being inside it.

Warning: the hot pink font is both part of the experience and an assault on the eyes

[kari trail]

grounding to read a book where notes-app-style revelations are treated as wisdom and ARE indeed very wise. a book can be a collection of things that feel true about your life . (that is a comforting thought)

(july 2026)


“if you pick up an animal and put it down somewhere else it will just keep living its life in that new spot.”

is it the pink times new roman typesetting or lauren cook’s delightful silly sexy shocking writing that had me wooooowed? probably both! full of surprises and brilliant little lines around each corner.

yes i like this theory:
“my crazy idea is that evolutionarily there is some benefit to being materialistic because something developed in our brains to make us enjoy acquiring objects because of hunting and gathering... like it would be an evolutionary benefit to enjoy collecting objects because we have to collect food and feel attracted to food in the same way animals are.... so we like shopping because shopping replaced foraging... just a theory though.”

(april 2025)

[Maya Campbell]

LOVED THIS!!! I read it in riverside park while watching a little league game! I have been coveting this book for a long time and it was well worth the wait. Such a treat!

[phoebe]

Oh my god perfect

[Charlie Doyon]

Very creative in form and content. Its a blend of different type of entries that feel like poetry, mostly, but also not being limited to it.
I tried to read as slow as possible because I didn’t want to finish it. Loved the sensibility about it. Will definitely read again!

[W]

Not as successful as sex goblin but whatever

[Ky]

This was so much more than I expected it to be.

[katryna]

5 STARS 5 STARS FOR EVERYONE THAT MAKES ME GO OOOOOOO AND OWWWWW AND WOOOOOAH AND WEEP I LOVE YOU LAUREN COOK

[carol]

shoutout to the lady slipper orchids, i guess

[Paige Parker]

Super quick read. Weird! Fun! Learned about an orchid! This is 100000% not be for everyone

[Isabella Caserta]

I found the tiny book this morning, in my sister's apartment. Initially I was drawn to the oh-so-relatable title and the beautiful pink font. This was an incredible impulse read and I loved it so much, I'll definitely get a copy and read it again.

[Hailey Skinner]

Some great one-liners here & some one-liners that made me blush, then bury my head in the sand, then hope my mom never picks this up thinking the cover is cute :-) <3

[Chanel Chapters]

The wind blows hard.

3.25 ⭐️

[Jon-Carlo]

Very cool and pretty and awesome I love their clothes, stickers, and this was great too

[Pia]

I picked this book up on a random Tuesday in my favourite bookshop, and intrigued by the hot pink text and hyper feminine contents. I remember flipping through to the Miu Miu slippers poem and being like “I have to read this”.

I pulled it out at a bar last night with my friend and fellow poetry collector Jonno, they were so excited that I got my hands on this book. We finished it in the back area of vic on the park.

[Sofia Carey]

Truly funny and thoughtful - laugh and cry
Pink writing
Short thoughts, long thoughts, stories, information, POETRY
Essence of internet-blog-thought turned profound (it’s always profound in the first place, it’s just now in a little book that fits in ur back pocket. Wait… is this book a phone!? Jk, but makes u think)

[Natalie Wehrer]

Sexy hot

[stephanie]

if there was an orchid emoji, i would place it here as part of my review:

[Dylan]

I am a small dog with a robust body

[Claudia]

this came from my brain

[frogmiller]

Beautiful stories, with unabashed honesty and detail that has left a profound impact on me. I first was introduced to this collection via an image of the "Here is my kinky roleplay" poem printed on a tshirt, that I probably found on twitter, in the same bright pink font style that characterizes each page. This led me to depop stores, Cook's instagram, and eventually, my adventure ended with an email chain between me and Cook, and being sent a full copy of the final google document. (for free!) I can't help but feel I have stumbled into a world not my own, and yet one that I thoroughly connect with, nonetheless.

[lia]

tricked me into reading poetry! cheeky bastard…

very corny at times pero lo cierto es que estaba muy ansiosa antes de empezarlo y me ayudó a aterrizar, es como si el libro fuera una serie de afirmaciones…. da la impresión de que estás leyendo los pensamientos de alguien pero son pensamientos interesantes y divertidos, un poco los que tendría un niño o alguien muy en paz consigo mismo

lo leí en el kindle y me da mucho fomo que la gente con la copia física lo leyó en times new roman rosa 🥲 also, no me cagó la intromisión de un panfleto sobre orquídeas en peligro de extinción o el intercambio de mensajes sobre avistamientos pastorales

[Natalie Marlin]

A free associative whirlwind of human evolution, theological existentialism, interrogations into our interpersonal relationships, and what it takes for a being to survive and adapt across time. In a distinctly contemporary postmodern style, I Love Shopping transmutes the kind of questions we've been asking of our very existence for millennia into the bounds of our post-Internet absorption of information, where our longing text conversations rest just next to our obsessive Wikipedia crawls. Lauren Cook can make truly any subject captivating.

[z]

I don't really have a lot to say about this book other than it feels like, in its existence, it shows the existence of Cook. How every thought we have is a thought and there are no thoughts, no writing, no books that don't deserve to be shared if the creator wants to share them. All the streams of conscience within here are equal, to some extent, and get to live and breathe within this. It's such an easy way of looking at fiction and not focusing on whether it's good or bad cause it's just here, right?

[Kathleen]

Very rare to experience light hearted joy, belly laugh, and deep connection in...whatever this was. A book? An art piece? Maybe it's just an experience. I will read this a hundred times.

Odd little piece of work and yet perfect. A word I never use but for me if was perfect.

[Saoirse Walsh]

i love experimentation and a meandering structure as much as the next girl but this was absolutely not it for me. It literally read like a malfunctioning AI bot. Some stand alone phrases and thoughts were amazing (that's the one star) but otherwise this made me angry. Unedited journal energy.

[Galen Norman]

What did I just smoke? I feel like an attempt at abstract art resulted in disjointed thoughts on wasted paper. Not my cup of tea, and I feel like for those whose it is are drinking a little more than tea.

[Casey]

Like having a conversation with your best friend. Like listening in on a stranger’s conversation because it’s way better than the one you’re having. Like reading Twitter but only seeing the best tweets. Like being on Tumblr. Like magic. Hilarious and beautiful. Got me somewhere in heart.

[Marishka]

Not for me, but I appreciate the vibe. I loved the last “essay” (idk what you call each individual note/story/log lmao) a lot, and awarded an extra star for it.

This is the last time I listen to a McNally Jackson employee’s recommendation (jk)