I couldn't get through this. The first story was hilarious. It was worth 2 stars on its own. Maybe I should have soldiered on and read the third selection. Oh well. Too many books to read, too little time. ( )

http://www.fnordinc.com/2009/06-15/bo...

“I was told there’d be cake”

Sloane Crosley.. we had such high hopes for you.

reading your pony story in radar, it seemed that reading your book was an awesome idea. if something makes you smile that much and it is only a single chapter from a book.. the rest MUST be excellent… right?

no. couldn’t have been more wrong.

when this book was first purchased, i was very pleased to read the pony story again. i imagined with horror the looks your family would give, when stumbling across your plastic pony corral in the kitchen drawer.

chapter 2 and three were some of the most unappealing collections of vowels and consonants i have read in ages. frankly, your book bored me so much, that after three chapters, i put it down and decided to forget about it, altogether.

something like a year has gone past. i felt a bit bad for you. on a sad and pathetic whim, i said “give sloane another chance.. she did make you laugh once.. perhaps she could do it again” i have been wrong in the past. i have read part of a book, been bored, picked it back up and had a better experience with a different mind set.

this was not the case with “i was told there’d be cake”. every single chapter was filled with bland anecdotes and sprawling in-effective prose. each story waddles back and forth like a drunken semi-retarded penguin, straying from topic to topic in a shoot from the hip manner.. but with a drunken semi-retarded penguin instead of a cowboy.. heh.. waddle… you are left staring at the pages wishing you had SOMETHING else to do. it took me two weeks to drag my ass through this book, opting to talk to strangers on public transit in an effort to distract myself..

this book is “too shy” by kajagoogoo.. the first chapter is sloane’s one hit wonder. everything else in between front and back cover is nothing but filler hoping beyond hope to become a cult hit or the elusive and desired “deep cut”..

in my view, you failed.

what you did well? you market things.. you book was pushed in a phenomenal manner. marketing is definitely your thing.. i have heard so many people talking about their interest in your collection of essays. unfortunately, none of them had read it before spouting off about it.

the thing i regret the most is the awful feeling i get when people i know are found with this in there hands and the disappointed look in their eyes.

leave the writing to the monkeys who are recreating Shakespeare on typewriters ( )

Crosley wrote about experiences or ideas that we can all find similarities to in our own lives or make connections to other things. However, one thing that definitely drove me nuts was how the author tended to jump around and move between various topics within one essay - sometimes being completely unrelated. Despite that, as someone who doesn't read very much non-fiction, It was one that I actually came to enjoy! Two of my favorite essays were "One Night Bounce" and
"Pony Problem." ( )

Not as funny as I was expecting following reviews I had read. ( )

I'm never sure what to expect when I read non-fiction. Sometimes it can be extremely dry, sometimes it can be warm and sometimes it can be a lot of fun. In the book, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, Sloane Crosley shares moments in her life through a series of essays.

I enjoyed the book for the most part. I read it fairly quickly and read some of it out loud to various friends and family. The author does not portray herself as a warm and fuzzy person which caused the stories to lack emotion. I'm sure that she is a perfectly nice person but I found myself wondering how she really felt in the situations she described. That was lacking for me.

I also was looking for more of a timeline but since these were essays on her life, and not a straight memoir, I understood the reason for it. I'm just a very linear person. All in all, it's a good read. I recommend it to those who enjoy reading David Sedaris or Jen Lancaster. I find Ms. Crosley to fit between the two. Not as jaded as Sedaris and not as funny as Lancaster. ( )