Cult Classic

A 2022 BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE TIMES‘The witty, improbably propulsive rom-com you didn't know you were waiting for' ELIF BATUMAN‘Razor sharp and very funny on the cult of modern dating' PANDORA SYKES‘So good. I couldn't stop reading it' NICK HORNBY‘Cult Classic makes an uproarious time of romantic carnage' RAVEN LEILANI'A witty and fantastical story of dating and experimental psychology in New York City' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)One night in New York City's Chinatown, Lola is at a dinner with former colleagues when she excuses herself to buy a pack of cigarettes. On her way back, she runs into a former boyfriend. The next night, she runs into another ex. And then… another. The city has become awash with ghosts of heartbreaks past. What might have passed for coincidence becomes something far stranger when the recently engaged Lola must contend not only with the viability of her current relationship, but the fact that her best friend and her former boss – a magazine editor turned mystical guru – might have an unhealthy investment in its outcome. As memories of the past swirl and converge, Lola is forced to decide if she will surrender herself to the conspirings of one very contemporary cult. A smart, sharp and hugely entertaining tale of luck and love, Cult Classic asks: is it possible to have a happy ending in an age when the past is ever at your fingertips and sanity is for sale?

This twisted and very funny New York anti-rom-com may ruin your love . . . [Crosley] is a caustic skewerer of internet millennial life on a par with Patricia Lockwood, A book about regret, about hoping you made the right choice, about the noxious power of our memories, but also about one of the worst things a woman can do in a big city: date men. Look, some of us can’t help it, despite our best efforts, A bona fide fun time. If you ghosted Ms Sloane Crosley’s stunner of a rom-com (and gleeful evisceration of dating culture) back in the summer – all is forgiven. Slip on something gorgeous, pour wine, light candles, open cover and have a beautiful time, Crosley’s writing is as funny as ever, with a great line or clever observation on nearly every page . . . Her fascinating conceits – entertaining and compelling in their own right – are the engines of the narrative, but her insights into contemporary life are the fuel, Crosley brings her prodigious gifts as a humorist to this crackling novel . . . At once acerbic and poignant, Cult Classic’s tour through heartbreaks past yields bittersweet truths about finding love by swipe. It’s as fine a treatise on modern romance as they come

Sloane Crosley is the author of the New York Times bestselling essay collections, I Was Told There’d Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number, as well as Look Alive Out There and the bestselling novel, The Clasp. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, New Yorker, Esquire, Vogue, New York Times Magazine, New York Times Book Review, New York Magazine and on NPR. She was the inaugural columnist for the New York Times op-ed "Townies" series, a contributing editor at Interview Magazine and Vanity Fair and a columnist for the Village Voice and New York Observer. She also created sadstuffonthestreet.com. She lives in Manhattan.