Review: "When I Picture You" by Sasha Laurens

When I Picture You by Sasha Laurens
Published October 2025 via Avon
★★★

Years ago, Lola and Renee were friends. Nothing happened, but they grew apart. And now Lola is a pop star who needs a director for her documentary, pronto, while Renee is an MFA student struggling with burnout...who happens to need a film project in order to graduate. Sparks fly—but Lola is in the closet, and both women quickly find themselves in uncharted territory, and in over their heads.

What worked for me here: The setup is fun. I mean, pop-star-as-protagonist is always fun (I have no interest in living that kind of life—never mind the lack of talent—but reading about it is fun), and the "documentary" brings another how-the-other-half-live layer: the version of a documentary Lola's team want is so image-managed that it's not really something I'd call a documentary at all. Lola is famous, but whatever limited story she has is not one her team wants told, so their goal is basically a bunch of shots of Lola looking pretty and cooing over babies. The documentary is not realistic...but Lola's team's desire for something unrealistic is. I also like the way Renee's MFA trajectory pans out—I won't say much about that, because it's a question throughout the book, but it keeps things interesting.

What didn't work so well for me: The word "panties". A lot of stereotypes at play, from Renee's MFA cohort to the way Ava is written. I'm not sure how much better (morally, if that's the right word—I'm not talking about directing skill) Renee is than her cohort, though; early on there's mention of a Sweet Sixteen party filming job that Renee took, in which she decided to make it "real" by filming (and cutting into the edit) a fight between the parents. It's a sort of throwaway line, and it's meant to be funny, but what it tells me is that she lacks a sense of circumstance—she doesn't know when it's appropriate to push her vision and when it's appropriate to do the job she was hired for. That would be a great starting point for a character arc, but it's not really something Renee learns from throughout the book. I'm also not a fan of "bad communication" conflict—and here they're both pretty bad communicators. Renee's genuine desire for Lola to be able to be her authentic self gets tangled up in Renee's MFA pressure, and Lola's learned inability to say no means that she is very rarely fully honest with anyone. This is addressed in the book (to a point), but it did kind of leave me thinking that by the end of the book they're not really in a place to be in a serious relationship, let alone one that will play out on a very public stage.

Overall, then, a mixed bag but an energetic one. Plenty of spice here, for readers who like it explicit...and plenty of Taylor Swift–coding (and probably coding for other pop stars whose work I'm not familiar with) for the Swifties.

Thanks to the author and publisher for inviting me to read a review copy through NetGalley.