Characters: N/A
Writing: C+
Plot: C
Pacing: C+
Poignancy: C
In my recent review of The Thieves of Manhattan, I complained that maybe humor books just aren't for me anymore. While my lament was certainly relevant to that novel, it was equally inspired by I Was Told There'd Be Cake, which I had started previously and, after struggling through a few stories, put down in frustration. I almost never picked the book back up, knowing there was little chance I would like it. But I have a blog, and therefore a mission, and thus an obligation, dammit. The book had to be reviewed. And guess what? I did not enjoy it. I Was Told There'd Be Cake is a collection of "humor" essays — modern confessional essays in the vein of David Sedaris, focusing on the wacky things that happen in the author's life and her self-deprecating reactions to said wacky things. It's probably unfair to compare everything in this genre back to Sedaris, just like every other review of I Was Told There'd Be Cake does, but whatever — Cake is essentially a watered-down version of Sedaris without any of the insight or humor.
Ultimately, anyway, humor can't really be analyzed, since it's mostly subjective. Nonetheless, I'm perplexed as to what in this book was meant to be funny at all. I hate to be so cruel, but this collection reads like an assortment of LiveJournal entries that some college senior shipped off to a publisher. It's choppy, banal and never says anything interesting or insightful. Sure, any slice-of-life story can be funny if told the right way, with a strong voice, and Crosley doesn't go for cheap shocks or obvious hyperbole. It's undoubtedly grounded in reality, no question. But that's just the problem. These are the sort of stories you tell your own friends, while wasted, to maybe get a few chuckles. The sort of stories you write while pissed-off over the day's events and later read to your writing workshop so you can vent — and maybe get a few sympathetic smiles. Crosley establishes herself as an average person from a wealthy suburban background, who's never had to work all that hard, who's suffered the same mild embarrassments and set-backs that everyone has suffered, but still manages to find time to condescend to those around her. She's had bosses that were mildly irritating, and yelled at her — but don't worry, she found a new job the day after she quit anyway, the day after 9/11 no less! What luck! She's self-deprecating, in an attempt to make herself seem even more average, but self deprecation is an art that she can't quite pull off, and instead it just makes her sound self-absorbed.
I don't want this review to sound like a character critique when it's a review of a book, but such things are hard to get past when dealing with confessional essays — the writer's personality often is the story. The main problem with Cake, and my primary confusion with how Crosley got this published in the first place, is that Crosley is just not a very good storyteller. Her tone is generic and predictable; her every-day subject matter is never elevated to anything else. She's not witty; she just sounds exasperated. Her narratives jump around clumsily and rarely have anything like a satisfying resolution. Some of the stories here are strangely hard to follow for lightweight humor essays, and others end so abruptly and pointlessly that I began checking my copy for missing pages. Without humor, without poignancy, without gripping storytelling or well-crafted prose, there's simply nothing here.
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