In “I was Told There’d be Cake,” native New Yorker Sloane Crosley talks about her life. Crosley’s book is a blending of “Sex ad the City” and “Seinfeld.”
The unlikely expeditions and everyday encounters that meet the common New Yorker most would not classify as mysterious.
But for whatever reason, these daily recollections hardly fail to entertain, whether the audience is urbanized or to-the-bone Midwestern.
Sloane Crosley, in her book “I Was Told There’d Be Cake,” has written some of the most eventful days in her life and conveyed them in a way that makes them seem ordinary and expected.
Although much of the book, which is a collection of essays written by Crosley, might reflect what one might overhear while in line at the hair salon in upper Manhattan, the overriding qualities are more or less readable for both genders.
The content of “I Was Told There’d Be Cake” is occasionally risqué, with quirkily detailed discussions of possible one night stands and other relationship-related affairs.
One should expect this from an author who has been published in magazines such as Playboy and Maxim. For the most part, Crosley reexamines her professional journey, while addressing the many relationship issues she has been lucky, or unlucky, enough to experience.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand what style Crosley establishes in “I Was Told There’d Be Cake” is to juxtapose her work with that of other prominent New York establishments, namely “Seinfeld” and “Sex and the City.” Essentially, one could read Crosley as a hybrid of these two popular shows, with a more than slight lean toward the latter. As Crosley continues to develop a “female-first” persona within the confines of her essays, which might best exemplifies through the flowered cover, there is more material for the Sarah Jessica Parker fan to cling to.
A wider demographic than just “Sex and the City” aficionados and chick-flick viewers might enjoy this book. “Sex and the City” aficionados and chick-flick viewers. One of the best examples of how Crosley’s thought process functions is very easy to find: the first line of the book.
Commenting about the contemplation most New Yorkers have on their own, unexpected death, Crosley establishes a state of mind for the reader that says, “I can joke about almost anything, so long as I don’t push it too far.” This is probably the overriding quality of the essay collection.
Even though “I Was Told There’d Be Cake” is more appealing for the urban woman than it is for the college-aged male, it is hard to narrowly recommend something that is such apparent fluidity and effortlessness.
Whenever the girl talk of an essay seems to be reaching its limit, Crosley appropriately bursts in with an inappropriate innuendo or outright string of four letter words. Leave it to a New Yorker to mix the two.
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