Sloane Crosley

From a New York Times bestselling author and Thurber Prize finalist comes a twisted mystery on the metaphysics of modern love, memory, and mind control. One night in Chinatown: Our heroine, Lola, is at a work reunion dinner with her former colleagues when she ducks out to buy cigarettes and runs into an ex-boyfriend. And then . . . another. And another. The city is suddenly awash with ghosts of heartbreaks past, and what would normally pass for a coincidence becomes something much stranger. The soon-to-be-married Lola must contend not only with the viability of her current relationship but with the fact that both her best friend and her former boss, a magazine editor turned guru, might have an unhealthy, ahem, investment in the outcome. Memories of the past swirl and converge in mystical ways both comic and eerie as Lola is forced to decide if she will buy into romance, and possibly into a weird startup-slash-cult. Both suspenseful and delightfully funny, this new novel from Sloane Crosley combines the breathtaking twists and turns of a psychological thriller with the will-she-won't-she of romantic comedy. Cult Classic is an original: a masterfully crafted, surrealist meditation on love in an age when the past is ever at your fingertips and sanity is for sale.

A Novel

Cult Classic

Lizzy Jensen

My whole life, I'd been telling myself the story of every breakup so that I had more agency in it. Men do not like to entertain the idea that they have destroyed someone and so they behave as if they haven't. I granted them the delusion, forking it over without a fuss. Everyone wins. 

Here is the art gallery where I met a man who would then jerk me around for years, both of us gaslighting the other as if awaiting a third-party verdict. 

Emiley Jones

I think, if closure exists, it's being okay with a lack of it.

There is a membrane of pride that surrounds the heart, and I found that when that area got damaged, it was hard to figure out what took the hit. Sometimes it was the heart, often it was only the cellophane.

Romance may be the world's oldest cult. It hooks you when you're vulnerable, holds your deepest fears as collateral, renames you something like "baby," brainwashes you, then makes you think that your soul will wither and die if you let go of a person who loved you. So you better have a good goddamn reason for saying, "Nah, not enough."

Men who told me they were falling for me. It felt so good to say it, they'd figure out if they meant it later.

It's difficult to comfort oneself by shrinking one's emotions without conceding that one has allowed those emotions to expand, unchecked, in the first place.

But their steady sweetness meant they never said anything outside the range of pleasant. Thus impossible as I found them not to like, I found them equally as impossible to love.

I worried about the betrayal of memory. I worried my former love life was a bomb waiting to go off. Or worse, that it would never go off. That I would wake one day having buried the past so well, I'd find myself unrecognizable.

Heartache was something that happened to them, not something they made happen. Feminism failed us on this point. Women are meant to emerge into each chapter as if from cocoons. Divine creatures with a smattering of flaws.

If I wanted to take the political route, marriage was confinement, a raw deal. People hoped for transformation but too often got lobotomization. Idealization hardened into disappointment. But life is not lived in politics, it's lived in days.

May our gaslights illuminate the bridges we burn. 

I suppose death is the ultimate lubricant for truth. [...] I fell for the projection and forgot the person.

It started interesting but from the middle of the story till the end, it was boring for me.

Yega

Riya

This was strange but good. So witty, engaging, and deeply profound.

Kendall McClain

jess larry

tried hard, like really hard but i can't get myself to like it. it was just so boring, filled with unnecessary details & somehow to dense for me

it's not you, it's me

Cult Classic is a comic mystery about love, memory, and mind control from New York Times-bestselling author and two-time Thurber Prize finalist Sloane Crosley One idle weeknight in New York’s Chinatown, our heroine is at a reunion dinner with her former colleagues when she ducks out to buy cigarettes. On the way back, she runs into a former boyfriend. And then another. And...another. Nothing is quite what it seems as the city becomes awash with ghosts of heartbreaks past. What would normally pass for coincidence becomes something far stranger as Lola must contend not only with the viability of her current relationship but the fact that both her best friend and former boss, a magazine editor-turned-mystical-guru, might have an acutely unhealthy investment in the outcome. Memories of the past swirl and converge in ways both comic and eerie, as Lola is forced to decide if she will buy into the tenets of romantic love, change who she is to do it and surrender herself to one very contemporary cult. Both suspenseful and delightfully funny, this new novel from Sloane Crosley combines the breathtaking twists and turns of a psychological thriller with the will-she-won't-she of a romantic comedy. Cult Classic is an original: a masterfully crafted, surrealist meditation on love in an age when the past is ever at your fingertips and sanity is for sale. With her gimlet eye, Crosley spins a wry romantic fantasy that is equal parts page-turner and poignant portrayal of alienation.

Caroline

This book sadly was not a Manhattan based witch tale romcom that it was sold to me in the mystery book store. This is not the books fault however it did mean I read it with impatience the book throughout. I’m saying this, it was still solid and I enjoyed the twist at the end which I didn’t see coming.

not bad, not incredible. This style of story telling isn’t my fave but the ending was nice 

Gaby Menendez

Overall a fascinating cross-genre book with an intriguing concept and eloquent phrases. A bit rambling at times—regarding both the narrator's musings and the loose plot. Given the subject matter, I expected to be more emotionally involved, but I never quite clicked with the characters. 

Steph Zymowski

Such a sensational, creative novel! I loved how seamlessly Sloane weaved mystery, surrealism and romance through a nihilistic yet still pretty lens. The main character is painfully relatable, beautifully expressing all of our deepest, suppressed judgments against ourselves and others. Easily in my top 5 list for 2022.

This book absolutely saturated my brain. Lola’s voice filled my mind and made it incredibly easy to just lose yourself in her memories and experiences. It was unlike anything I have read before and at the same time you feel the emotion so intensely and familiarly, all with managing to maintain humor and wit. Remarkably written, with insight into how love and relationships shape us and how holding onto the past holds us hostage, and how maybe we just don’t know what we want until we are forced to relive every path. 

Marisa clarke

Ashley Pennington

This was out of my normal genre and I enjoyed listening to this story. 

This story was different, unique. The idea of coming face to face with past relationships and how they shaped who we are. What role they played in our lives. I think we tend to forget these relationships over time. Or at least the significance some held in our lives. 

This was a smart, whitty, engaging read. 

I liked that the author was the narrator for this story. I can't imagine a better voice to narrate this story. 

Thank you MacMillion Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this book.

Cult Classic A Novel

Reviews

Highlights