Review : I was told there’d be cake

Posted by kay on February 16, 2009 12:33 pm in 3.5 stars reads | 3 comments

I was told there’d be cake by Sloane Crosley

Obviously, I couldn’t resist to a book with “cake” in the title!

This collection of essays presents with humor various moments in the life of the author, from her first job to her conception of sex as a kid. When a book makes me laugh out loud, it’s usually a good sign, and this book succeeded on this point. I laughed many times, some times at the events, sometimes because I could relate so easily to them.

When I started reading “I was told there’d be cake”, I was left uncertain about the first few essays. Fortunately though, I found many essays to be funny enough to keep reading. Certain topics are typical of this kind of books: (unsuccesful) attempts at one-night stands, childhood summers in religious camps, etc. Fortunately, there are also more original essays, like “Smell this” where she finds out someone left “a perfect, cherry-sized turd” on her bathroom carpet, or “You on a stick”, where she is invited to a friend’s wedding she hasn’t seen in years. Finally, I had a special appreciation for “Lay like brocoli”, an essay that tells us her journey to the vegan world, anc back.

The book is a quick read and overall very enjoyable. I enjoyed it enough to give it a 3.5 stars rating, but I though it lacked a little something. Biblioaddict’s review tells it better than I could: I wish the essays would go a little deeper. Often, I felt like the last sentence was meant to explain to the reader what the whole essay meant to her, while I wish this could have been included more in the story.