I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays for the Young New Yorker, and Everyone Else

What makes this book worthy of our time as readers is an unabashed will to write about what we think no one else wants to hear about. Anyone who ever hated her job, lived near or with another human being, or has ever, even only once, used the phrase "intensive purposes," will love Sloane Crosley. The stuff we blab on about (read: complain about) over coffee is written here with a sense of humor and understanding that, if she were to actually tell you about it at brunch, you wouldn't feign interest, or raise your eyebrows in false surprise; the interest and alarm would be down right genuine.

Crosley digs into her experience as a human among humans in one of the most humanly busy cities on Earth, hitting all the corners and sides of what it is to be alive. That sounds endearing and lofty, but rest assured, she's anything but. Her frank and honest approach to her essays will make you seek out those locales where people can read without impunity, like the subway, or an abandoned warehouse. She writes in a way that is neither dumb, nor high-brow, yet her high level of brain and heart is unquestionable. Take the essay about her one night stand for example:

In the middle of the story, she explains that her suitor lived very close to her. A lesser writer would say just that: "I hooked up with a guy who lives in the same building as me. Crazy, right?"

Wrong! That's not crazy, It's boring! To spare us such tedium, Crosley puts it this way:

"He lived two apartments down from me. In fact, our apartments faced out to the same courtyard, and if we wanted to communicate through tin cans and string, we could have."

I have to hand it to Crosley for successfully calling on the childish game of telephone to illustrate the awkward concomitant tension after a one-night stand with someone you could very well see everyday. Her technique is original, intelligent, and comes from the heart. What many of us find too tangled and emotionally messy to explain, she presents with classy self-deprecation and a firm grip on what it means to keep it real.

This book is a success. I wasn't half way through by the time I considered Crosley a rockstar, and someone whose presence would turn me into a giggling pre-teen if I ever had the pleasure of being in it (this is me winking, dear Universe).