How Did You Get This Number by Sloane Crosley
My rating: 2/5 cats
sloane crosley offends me on a number of levels.
as a new yorker.*
as a woman.
as an american.
as a taxpayer.
and there are essays in this collection to back up each of these personal twinges of disgust.
but mostly, she offends me as a bookseller. and it may not be her fault, entirely. part of the blame must rest with whatever higher-than-me part of the bn machine it is that classifies books in our system.
sloane crosley is categorized as “humor”.
now, she is a girl with a background in publishing, so you know she knows some people in the biz. and she probably had some sort of claw in the pudding to get her book where she wanted it, but lemme just tell you emphatically- she is not funny. if i am reading a “humor” book, my expectations are that i will laugh at least one time. but no. not even a giggle.
this is my second sloane crosley book, and i’m sorry, this isn’t a matter of personal taste: the woman is not funny. i loved the title of her first collection, but the book did nothing for me, and this one does even less.
i think david sedaris is funny. i think david rakoff is funny. barnes and noble thinks that they should be in “essays” with emerson and montaigne, while sloane “look at my perky…smile” crosley should go in humor. it makes me feel like a liar when i have to direct people toward this book in that section. it complicates my day.
i don’t mind if people want to write self-indulgent memoirs. that is everyone’s right as a human. but i don’t have as much of the voyeur spirit as a lot of people of my generation, and i don’t read a lot of memoirs. but i’ll read humorous essays, no problem. so to try to trick me into reading about your european jet-setting and failed relationships?? you are elizabeth gilbert with a sexier name, nothing more.
this is just a book of whining.
this review is excellent. and i totally agree with her about the “three star pity fuck.” i have given my share of those before, but this time, she gets a two. and if i read another one, it will probably get a one.
why would i read another one??
i like to know my enemy.
sara barron, please write another book, pleeeeease!
*sigh, no i wasn’t born here, but i been here 16 years, and i have more respect for the new york that was than this new new york full of bicycles and smoking regulations and double-wide baby strollers. westchester imports like sloane crosley have ruined this city.
because, okay, here is one of my problems. she started out one essay in a way which showed promise: she discussed the different levels of tolerance new yorkers have for certain day-to-day things we have to endure. she says that some new yorkers hate the subway musicians but slow tourist street walkers don’t bother them or vice versa etc. and listed a bunch of different obstacles and annoyances, and i was totally on board with that, because i have my own internal list of things that bug me daily, and i thought me and sloane were finally gonna connect. but then she lists the number one universal thing that allll new yorkers hate the most. and it is…. cab smell. now here’s the problem. no one i know takes cabs every day. because they are unnecessary. even if i was rolling in money, i wouldn’t take a cab ever day. because i am not a princess and i am capable of walking or riding the subway. so it’s not as though i am assaulted by cab smell every day, like whiny sloane crosley who gets out of a cab a block away from where she was picked up because she can’t handle the odor and refuses to give the cabbie any money. because it’s his problem she’s so weak. and then to turn her personal discomfort into a universal truth “this is what alll new yorkers hate the most.” it’s arrogant, and did i mention unfunny??
i wish a hundred smelly cabs upon her.
