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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This debut essay collection is full of sardonic wit and charm, and Crosley effortlessly transforms what could have been stereotypical tales of mid-20s life into a breezy series of vignettes with uproariously unpredictable outcomes. From the opening The Pony Problem to the hilarious Bring-Your-Machete-to-Work Day (which will ring true for any child of the early 1990s who played the first Oregon Trail computer game), Crosley is equal parts self-deprecating and endearing as she recounts her secret obsession with plastic ponies and the joys of exacting revenge via a pixilated wagon ride. In less capable hands, the subjects tackled—from unpleasant weddings of long-forgotten friends to horrendous first jobs—could have been a litany of complaints from yet another rich girl from the suburbs. But Crosley, who grew up in Westchester and currently lives in Manhattan, makes the experiences her own with a plethora of amusing twists: a volunteer job at the American Museum of Natural History leads to a moral quandary, and a simple Upper West Side move becomes anything but. Fans of Sarah Vowell's razor-sharp tongue will love this original new voice. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
'I love Sloane Crosley. She's a postmodern Mary Tyler Moore, and this book is wry, generous, knowing - a perfect document of what it is to be young in today's world.' AM Homes 'Sloane Crosley is a mordant and mercurial wit. What makes her so funny is that she seems to be telling the truth, helplessly.' Jonathan Lethem 'Crosley channels David Sedaris - and Carrie Bradshaw - in a slightly cracked and often charming collection of essays recounting a suburban girl's adventures in the big city.' Vogue 'The voice feels a little like Nora Ephron's, a little like Dorothy Parker's and David Sedaris', although Crosley has a spry wistfulness that's very much her own. We applaud the arrival of a very funny writer.' Los Angeles Times
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First Sentence
As most New Yorkers have done, I have given serious and generous thought to the state of my apartment should I get killed during the day. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
As most New Yorkers have done, I have given serious and generous thought to the state of my apartment should I get killed during the day. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
"I had always chalked up my feelings of isolation as a child to being a child",
By
This review is from: I Was Told There'd Be Cake (Paperback)
If you have American kids -- or may have them someday -- did you ever think of raising them in an interesting foreign country so they could come back as teens with a high coolness quotient? No? Would you send a Jewish ten-year-old to a Christian summer camp? and if you did, would you be surprised to hear that she played Mary in the "Christmas in July" pageant after the blond Girl from Darien was hobbled by a broken toe? Is there a collection of anything in your kitchen drawers, let's say toy ponies for example, that you worry about your mother finding if you die unexpectedly? and if so, would you dispose of them on a Brooklyn-bound subway train? Have you ever locked yourself out on moving day, from both old AND new apartments, requiring two expensive calls to the same sarcastic locksmith?No? Then you're not like Sloane Crosley, the twenty-something author of "I Was Told There'd Be Cake." This little book of wildly assorted essays is a kind of cubist blueprint for the young, well-off, well-educated New York woman. Crosley's writing is irreverent about her family ("I have never met two people more afraid of their house burning down than my parents") and particularly about her (we hope) well-disguised friends. She says of a pair of dinner guests: "Because there are no more hippies, you don't call them hippies. (But if you ever saw two people on a beach, gorging themselves on whole-wheat burritos and pot, picking sand out of each other's toes, and diving into the water naked, that would be them.)" You may wonder whether you care about Sloane Crosley's observations on her short life to date. That's one question I can't answer for you. I will tell you that while her experiences may be alien to anything you have ever done, thought or felt, the girl can write intelligently and with great humor; there are unifying principles in the human existence and she catalogs a subset of them very well . We're bound to hear more from this young writer, and if she brings her sardonic wit to deeper subjects it will be very well worth reading. This book was an entertaining look at her world. One star off for the essay format, as I believe her book would have been better served by a more linear memoir format. Linda Bulger, 2008
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Seriously hilarious essays,
By
This review is from: I Was Told There'd Be Cake (Paperback)
Sloane Crosley has written herself a seriously funny collection of essays that deserves to be up there with David Sedaris, if just a shelf lower. She's young (26ish?) but that doesn't mean she has nothing to say about her life so far. Her observations of the world around her (New York) and herself (self-deprecating and honest) are what make this collection not only funny, but more than something superficial. She has the courage to reveal a lot of herself to her readers, and poke fun in the process. And, although this kind of self-deprecating style can come off as pompous in other essayists (I think here of Augusten Burroughs), she manages to keep it under wraps.There are a few times when her attempts at going a bit deeper than the surface fall flat and come off as a bit forced, her point hammered home just a tad too hard. And there were a few times when I felt myself wishing that the pace was a bit quicker, some of the essays going on a bit too long (her stint as a bridesmaid comes to mind here). But there were many times when I laughed out loud, particularly in the essay about how she locked herself out of two separate apartments on moving day. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this and look forward to another collection.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Read,
By
This review is from: I Was Told There'd Be Cake (Paperback)
I enjoyed this book and bought it for two of my friends. It was well written, insightful and made me laugh. I am quite happy to see that another book is in the works.
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