Where's My Cake?

I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

 

I'd seen this on Amazon at a few different points, and while the title intrigued me (I like cake; I'd show up if someone told me there'd be cake, especially chocolate mousse cheese cake from the Cheesecake Factory), I wasn't sure if a funny title was worth the time or money.  Then I actually saw it recommended on two very different sites that I read, and ended up ordering it.

 

First off, the other websites praised it so highly that I was expecting to be laughing out loud a lot, despite my usual reaction to comic essay pieces.  So needless to say, it didn't quite meet my expectations.  However, there was one essay in particular that made me laugh quite a bit, and the others amused me enough.  I think my favorite one was about her being a bridesmaid for a middle/high school friend she hadn't even talked to in years.  Not only that, but she was the maid of honor, which Crosley didn't even realize until a few short weeks before the wedding.  She was chosen for this "honor" simply because she had inquired if there was one at the beginning of the planning process.  In response to this, Crosley "wondered if all her life's decisions since [she]'d known her had been based on such subtleties of conversation, and it took everything [she] had to stop from asking, Are you sure you're engaged?" (161)  I also enjoyed her piece on the Oregon Trail (I've played that!), and about her vegan/vegetarian diet.  There were definitely a few parts in all her essays that I could relate to or easily imagine happening, while others were more outlandish, and overall it was well balanced.  The first few were the most uneven and weak but even they had good parts, and as the book progresses, the essays also get better.