How Did You Get This Number by Sloane CrosleyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
It took me a long time to finish this book, and not just because I'm a slow reader. With her first few essays, I had a difficult time connecting with Crosley's voice. She felt a bit cold and distanced, which is what essays can do sometimes and why I generally connect more with fiction than nonfiction.
The first two essays, while "interesting" didn't leave me feeling more invested in her travels or her view of the world. They just left me feeling like I had been to a lecture. And I was also confused, because I was told I would love Sloane Crosley by many trusted reading pals.
But I found her voice cool, like too cool for school. She is definitely very cool, and by cool, I mean yes, people think she's smart and quick, but also, she's cool, as in detached. These two things can coincide together just fine, but again, I felt left out of this cool club that I wasn't sure I would want to belong to anyway.
Then...I got hooked. Right where I was about to give up a second time. (This was my second reading, as the first time I didn't make it through the third essay.) When I finally made it to the essay entitled "An Abbreviated Catalog of Tongues", I found the Crosley -and the essays of Crosley- that made me want to keep reading. Weirdly, I felt my reward for reading the first few essays was making it to here, where suddenly, Crosley became a much more real life person, that made my heart engage, and not just have my brain check off a list of essay ingredients. "Le Parisi" cracked me up in several moments and "Off the Back of A Truck" broke my heart - she astutely described betrayal and heartbreak in an observational-AND-confessional essay, which gave it the intellectual backbone that only time and distance can help create.
I'm really happy I finished this book. I was going to rate it 2-3 stars, but those last few essays got me. They were so good, they almost felt like fiction.
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