CULT CLASSIC - Sloane Crosley

Reading the description of this book I thought I might be in for something along the lines of the 1985 film, After Hours. 

Lola is a hip, modern New Yorker.  She's an editor, now in her early 30's. She's had her string of boyfriends and lovers but is currently living a boyfriend whom she will be marrying soon.

On one particular night out with some friends Lola steps away from the gathering to pick up a pack of cigarettes when she runs into an old boyfriend - someone she hasn't thought about in a very long time. The timing, however, creates some anxiety as Lola is currently in a relationship with 'Boots' and she's been stressing over whether or not this is 'the one' - the potential life-long marriage. Of course, running into this old boyfriend now prompts her to consider and compare.

But as the evening wears on, Lola continues to run into ex-boyfriends (and she's had quite a few).  The meetings all feel as though they are chance encounters, but what are the odds that she should run into so many just at the time she is considering a life-changing moment? Slim, of course, but what could be behind it? There is indeed something at play, a cult, oddly enough.  A cult of ex-boyfriends? Could it be?

As Lola continues her odd night of encounters, she realizes she has fewer and fewer reasons to be delaying her wedding to Boots.

I really thought this was going to be a deliciously odd book, right up my alley, but was disappointed in the presentation. 

This isn't the exciting, quirky story I was hoping for ... the kind where you eagerly look forward to the next paragraph, the next page, the next chapter, to see what comes next (more quirkiness or a revelation?!). This was a slow, methodical layering of a story. That works often enough, but with an idea so off-the-wall, we need a pace and energy to match, and this does not. Some of this has to do with the language.  Author Sloane Crosley writes with a rich, brilliant language, but that actually holds this story back. We get caught up in the prose, or stumble over the prose, instead of the action.

The concept is pretty brilliant ... a cult of ex-boyfriends - and even the over-arcing story of the woman trying to figure out her life and her future life makes for a potentially best-selling book. I think I'd like to see this same concept given to a dozen different writers to see how different the stories would be because I really like the concept.

Looking for a good book? Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley is an off-beat, satire, romance that doesn't quite provide the wit and charm that it promises.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

3-1/2 stars

* * * * * *

Cult Classic

author: Sloane Crosley

publisher: MCD

ISBN: 9780374603397

hardcover, 304 pages

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