How Did You Get This Number (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
I hate this book and I really really dislike Sloane Crosley.I confess, I hated her first book so I don't really know what possessed me to read her second one. It was a library book so maybe that's it? It was free. It wasn't checked out by anyone else. It has a clever title and it sounds like something I'd like but it is not. It is not something I like. This book is naval-gazing and boring. I'd forgive naval-gazing if it's at least interesting or funny. This is neither of those things. Sloane is not a terribly interesting person. In almost every single essay I'd flip ahead to see how many pages she is going to blather on without a point. Also, she is not nice. She is extremely snotty about anyone who does not live in New York as if there was some sort of test that she passed and we failed and now she's going to rub our noses in it. Plus, she's just nasty generally. There's a chapter about a friend of hers from middle school and when she runs into her again as an adult, she ponders the idea that she heard this girl was a slut and has had a couple of abortions. What? Seriously? Am I supposed to root for you? Am I supposed to nod my head and say "Oh yes, she sounds like a slut" instead of wondering where you even got this information and what sort of grown-up calls another grown woman a slut and makes fun of her (rumored) medical decisions?Terrible. Sloane's second collection of essays is far better than the first so I cannot help but wish that it too earns the coveted, "New York Times Bestseller" stamp of approval. Although thanks to self help diet books the whole NYT Best Seller brand has sadly been reduced to little more than a few hand held sparkly accolades twirling around the thin spray tanned wrists of a Kindle clutching literary community from their ocean view infinity pools in Malibu.I see no feature film in your future, dear Sloane- and Oprah might not take note- but I'd kill to see you and Alex Karpovsky co-write something. I surely hope our heroic author- who, it should be noted, even tickles David Sedaris' funny bone- made enough money from the book sales to cover rent for a few more months in an apartment in Manhattan WITH a flat screen AND a door man, and without second hand Ikea shoji screen partitions separating the toilet from the stove and the third roommate from the fifth. There will be no more doll head chandeliers, anorexic kleptomaniac roommates, and old timey ghost whores for you Ms. Crosely.We hope.My favorite in the collection was, "It's Always Home You Miss." It's not every day that a writer can so beautifully, succinctly, and hilariously describe exactly what it's like to commute in NYC via taxi cab. Sloane damned near smacked me in the face with fond olfactory memories of the Puerto Rican yellow chariots of my childhood isle of Manhattan with three words:vomitcologneand pine tree air freshenerThank you Sloane for not being another vapid, scatological, New York City thirty-something woman intent on writing about Prada bags, Manolos, and sexcapades with the guy who always -fill in the blank with some characteristic oddity like- has to watch Circus porn while playing The Star Spangled Banner on the theremin in order to orgasm.And CHEERS a hundred thousand times over for not ending any essay with the same tired old, "and then (because quite obviously this was the whole point of my existence up to now) I met the man of my dreams and lived happily after after."It's too bad that few people will ever realize that you far surpassed fictional writer Carrie Bradshaw's inexorable association with NYC in one swift stitch of a phrase when you describe being inside a taxi when it begins to rain on the rest of the pedestrians who are, "...reaching for the black umbrellas they just left in restaurant booths... [and] Since you're already cocooned in your banana chariot, you indulge in a little schadenfreude- the ultimate New York comfort food, surpassing even the cupcake."Indeed.
What do You think about How Did You Get This Number (2010)?
The book grabbed my attention a few times, unfortunately, not long enough to keep me interested.
—masselbon
Not as good as her first one, but still amusing.
—blanca12
