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| I Was Told There'd Be Cake | 
 enlarge | Author: Sloane Crosley
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy New: $7.82
You Save: $6.18 (44%)
New (50) Used (35) Collectible (2) from $7.04
Avg. Customer Rating:  82 reviews
Sales Rank: 609
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.8
ISBN: 159448306X
Dewey Decimal Number: 814.6
EAN: 9781594483066
ASIN: 159448306X
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20081202223058T
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| Customer Reviews:
 very disappointed May 4, 2008
16 out of 28 found this review helpful
This book was recommended by a woman's fitness magazine I subscribe to and sounded very funny in the write-ups I had seen. I was very excited to read it, but now that I am several chapters into it, I am just feeling very disappointed. I want to like it, but I just feel like the author is trying too hard to be funny with odd little tales. I was hoping it might be a female version of Larry David's kind of humor....but it's not. This may sound prudish and old fashioned, but I have to admit, one of my first turn-offs in this book was when I saw that one of the chapters had a four letter word in it. I can handle an occasional four letter word in a book, but to have it as a chapter heading really just was a bit much for me. Seems lot of folks enjoyed this book, just not a good match for me I guess.
 "I had always chalked up my feelings of isolation as a child to being a child" September 18, 2008
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
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
 Had me laughing! April 9, 2008
13 out of 19 found this review helpful
I was looking for some new authors to try and picked up this book. Crosley has outdone herself in this debut effort of essays. She has a razor sharp wit and an eye for the improbable. She had me laughing many times but the story about her trashing an exhibit at the New York Museum of Natural history was especially hilarious! I'll be looking for more from this cracker jack author!
 Sloane is good-- she will get better, like this book does. June 8, 2008
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
I'm only giving this three stars because it really is a three star book. That said-- I expect that eventually she'll have quite a few five star books, as she has the talent-- it just isn't fully developed as of yet.
I was quite disappointed with the first few essays, and thought that maybe she was trying too hard. The essays are somewhat enjoyable, but she mixes a few too many cliches in with too few of her very original sentences.
But-- it was good enough to keep me reading, and I absolutely loved the "You On a Stick" essay about her being asked to be a bridesmaid in an old friend's wedding. Thoroughly enjoyable, and something many of us can relate to.
She's young and still finding her voice. My guess is that her next work will be an improvement and that we'll be hearing more from her.
She definitely is cool-- in that she is honest, and that she writes from her own perspective, not caring what might "sell."
This book to me, while disappointing overall, does show that she has the observational voice that we all love in the Sedarises and Burroughs of the world. Plus she has the ability to create unusual and entertaining phrases which you have to admire.
I'll definitely be watching her rise.
Made me laugh-and that's good April 12, 2008
11 out of 20 found this review helpful
Reading Sloane Crosley's essays titled I Was Told There'd Be Cake disrupted my family on more than one evening. After continually disturbing my husband by laughing out loud and for long periods of time, he asked me to read in my office. When I finished the book, he picked it up and now I've requested that he read it elsewhere as his guffaws are disturbing my peace and quiet.
Crosley has a sharp eye, is a wonderful writer with the wit and wisdom to take the absurd, mundane or any other experience for that matter and write about it in such a way that you are carried off and travel (willingly) down the quirky road she builds.
It's difficult to choose a favorite essay, but my laugh meter launched into the stratosphere while reading "Christmas in July". Just thinking about a young Jewish girl being sent to a Christian camp (where she plays Mary in the Christmas play) started me off giggling, and then it deteriorated into raucous laughter. It's probably my favorite, if forced to choose.
But the "Ursula Cookie" comes close to being my favorite. The visuals of the `boss from hell' and newly hired, Crosley is priceless. "Lay like Broccoli" and "Fever Faker" brought loud snickers, and "Sign Language for Infidels" was the essay where I was sent to my office due to loud laughing. I could see Crosley releasing the butterfly and feel her lack of enthusiasm about volunteering-for anything.
You may not regularly read essays, but if you miss I Was Told There'd Be Cake you'll be missing out on a gem of a read. Remember, laughing keeps us younger.
Armchair Interviews says: A must read from a new and unique voice.
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