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A review by nssutton
How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley
2.0
A series of essays by a chic publishing-backgrounded New Yorker for other New York literalti.
Is that a little bit harsh? I suppose. I chose this book as a palate cleanser and I knew what I was getting into, having read I Was Told There'd Be Cake a few years back. I stand by my initial assessment of Crosley as a writer, which is that she gets a lot of press for being an attractive 20-something with a book deal because most of the people writing such reviews are 20-somethings who wish they had a book deal. She's not in league with the same contemporary essayists right now, even those of NYC-centric stock, but she's not terrible. She gets herself into pickles and travels and has had broken hearts. You like idly reading about her learning disability, her trip to Alaska, her wheelings and dealings with off-the-back-of-a-truck furniture sales.
But the real lure for me, with a book like this, is that I could actually do that. So reading a book like this is both frustrating and supportive. I get myself into pickles and am fairly adept at stringing together sentences. I may not have the publishing legs on which to stand, but with a story of like how I purchased my first car, or that time I dated a good friend and it exploded into awfulness, or the day I had to ask a man in the library to remove his hands from his pants and his body from the floor of the front lobby, I mean really, how hard can it be?
Is that a little bit harsh? I suppose. I chose this book as a palate cleanser and I knew what I was getting into, having read I Was Told There'd Be Cake a few years back. I stand by my initial assessment of Crosley as a writer, which is that she gets a lot of press for being an attractive 20-something with a book deal because most of the people writing such reviews are 20-somethings who wish they had a book deal. She's not in league with the same contemporary essayists right now, even those of NYC-centric stock, but she's not terrible. She gets herself into pickles and travels and has had broken hearts. You like idly reading about her learning disability, her trip to Alaska, her wheelings and dealings with off-the-back-of-a-truck furniture sales.
But the real lure for me, with a book like this, is that I could actually do that. So reading a book like this is both frustrating and supportive. I get myself into pickles and am fairly adept at stringing together sentences. I may not have the publishing legs on which to stand, but with a story of like how I purchased my first car, or that time I dated a good friend and it exploded into awfulness, or the day I had to ask a man in the library to remove his hands from his pants and his body from the floor of the front lobby, I mean really, how hard can it be?