I Was Told There'd Be Cake

I've always been envious of authors like Bill Bryson or David Sedaris, who are able to put down vignettes about their lives in uproarious fashion. I'm sure if I thought long and hard enough, I could come up with several adventures from my own life that rival theirs, but I would never be able to do so with as much wit as they do.

Last weekend I picked up Sloane Crosley's I Was Told There'd Be Cake, which has been optioned by HBO for a small screen adaptation. The blurb on the front cover, by Jonathan Lethem, calls Crosley a "mordant and mercurial wit," though for me she never quite crosses into the realm of sheer hilarity. I went through a period of time where I would read Bryson on airplanes, to distract myself from the flight. To this day, I think they were the only times I ever laughed on a plane. But while Crosley wasn't as funny, she's a charming writer, and doesn't every twenty-something female in the U.S. in some way relate to every other twenty-something female?

From stories about her terrible first job out of college at a publishing house to being a bridesmaid for a woman she hasn't seen since high school, Crosley's essays are amusing and relatable (though no high school friend has yet asked me to don a pastel dress, thanks goodness). I Was Told There'd Be Cake is a quick read, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else Crosley writes in the future.