Sloane Crosley
Much like Crosley's first collect (I Was Told There'd Be Cake), How Did You Get This Number peers inside her slightly quirky life, including a spare of the minute, midlife crisis trip to Lisbon, reasons why she feels she isn't allowed in Paris and how she isn't stupid, she is just ridiculously right brained and has no spacial recognition.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed in Crosley's sophomore attempt at life oriented humor. I remember laughing out loud at parts of I Was Told There'd be Cake so when I finally got How Did You Get This Number in the mail over a month after ordering it I was ecstatic. The book as a whole is short, coming in at around 280 pages, but where my main issue lies is in the length of the stories. Averaging at 30 pages I started to feel like Crosley's point, and the humorous intent got left behind within the first five pages of each story. The sheer amount of stories about traveling were redundant. What started off as interest in a trip to Lisbon in winter gone wrong with the help of clown college students gave me hope of belly laughs to come, but when endless talks of getting lost everywhere, going to confession in Notre Dame as a Jew and a epic trip to Alaska to be a bridesmaid started to blend together, I started to wonder if I was missing the point.
I know not every story should be 5 pages long with humorous events every other line and that humor is very subjective. It's entirely possible that I just had unachievable expectations for How Did You Get This Number and my own hopes got in the way of enjoying what could have been a fun read. What it comes down to is that yeah, I laughed a few times, and more than once thought "YES, I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH A CRAZY ROOMMATE" but when it comes to that wow factor, that thing that leaves you wishing for endless pages of the same thing, it seems to be MIA.
1 comment:
I was in the bookstore and this book caught my eye. I ended up buying her first book, I Was Told There'd Be Cake because it was in paperback and I liked what I saw when I skimmed through it but it wasn't quite what I thought. I had a similar experience with it to what you describe above. I was hoping perhaps this book would fix some of those problems she had but it doesn't sound like it. I'm thinking this won't be making it onto my TBR list, at least not right away.
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