Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley - Available

Cult Classic

A Novel

by Sloane Crosley
Sloane Crosley
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

"This is a surreal and hilarious insight into millennial dating with a big twist, and the narrator will have you hooked from the very beginning." -Buzzfeed
"Crosley reads with an incisive understanding of Lola's psyche. She hits all of the notes of sarcasm and reluctant self-reflection, and somehow even manages to give her searching optimism a fatalistic undertone. There are no character voices or modulations in pacing, leaving listeners with only Lola's perspective—a fitting narration for this delightfully cynical love story." -Booklist on Cult Classic
"...anyone will enjoy listening to Sloane read her novel about Lola, a young arts-and-culture editor who mysteriously keeps running into her ex-boyfriends." -Vulture

Hilariously insightful and delightfully suspenseful, Cult Classic is an original: a masterfully crafted tale of love, memory, morality, and mind control, as well as a fresh foray into the philosophy of romance.
MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK of 2022 by Glamour, W, Nylon, Fortune, Lit Hub, The Millions, and more!

This program is read by the author.
One night in New York City's Chinatown, a woman is at a work reunion dinner with former colleagues when she excuses herself to buy a pack of cigarettes. On her 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 the recently engaged Lola must contend not only with the viability of her current relationship but the fact that both her best friend and her former boss, a magazine editor turned mystical guru, might have an 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 surrender herself to the conspiring of one very contemporary cult.
Is it possible to have a happy ending in an age when the past is ever at your fingertips and sanity is for sale? With her gimlet eye, Sloane Crosley spins a wry literary fantasy that is equal parts must-listen and poignant portrayal of alienation.
A Macmillan Audio production from MCD Books

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    June 7, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781250856517
      • File size: 234918 KB
      • Duration: 08:09:24

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from April 4, 2022
      Crosley (The Clasp) offers a witty and fantastical story of dating and experimental psychology in New York City. After Lola, 37, bumps into two exes in two days, she suspects it’s more than coincidence. Then her friend Vadis, with whom she used to work at a prestigious psychology journal, drags her to a meeting held by a secretive startup named Golconda run by their charming former boss, Clive Glenn. Clive is putting an obscure theory to the test involving meditation and technological manipulation, in which participants can lure people from their past for a final interaction and closure. Lola balks at the cultlike reverence the others show for Clive, as well as their New Agey vibe, but also hopes to clarify whether she really wants to marry her glassmaker fiancé, Boots. With Boots away for two weeks in San Francisco, she signs up and spends every evening having brief interactions with exes, then returning to Golconda for debriefing. When a stressed-out Clive says they only have funding for one final encounter, Lola discovers something unsettling about the experiment. The accounts of Lola’s reckoning with her romantic history are thoroughly hilarious (describing the rush of boyfriends past, she narrates, “I experienced these men as no one is supposed to experience them, as if being propelled from a T-shirt gun”), and the details of online dating, which made her “the victim of a metric ton of rejection,” are also sharply perceptive, rooting this very much in the real world. Crosley has found the perfect fictional subject for her gimlet eye. Agent: Jay Mandel, WME.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Sloane Crosley narrates her audiobook, a satisfying mix of romance, thriller, mystery, and fantasy. Lola is happily engaged to Boots, but her evenings are unexpectedly teeming with exes. Both her best friend, Vadis, and her former boss, Clive, seem to have formed an interest in her romantic life. While the novel's language is rich, the characters' voices are often indistinguishable. Still, listeners will hear their tones and inflections as Crosley intends. Brimming with her familiar New York City humor, Crosley delivers sarcasm with flawless comic timing and provides a perfect performance as Lola. The story itself is sandwiched precariously between the real and the surreal. If listeners can suspend disbelief momentarily, the quirky plot and surprise ending will keep them on their toes. E.P. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      September 1, 2022

      Crosley (The Clasp; I Was Told There'd Be Cake) narrates her page-turning novel about a skeptically engaged woman in her late 30s. Lola falls down the rabbit hole of past boyfriends after bumping into an ex outside a restaurant in Chinatown--but there's a lot more to it than that. This is also a novel about the budding cult of New Age influencers, algorithms, and how we make decisions about what we want. As she investigates her reluctance to fully commit, Lola does a postmortem on relationships that didn't work out. It's a delight to listen to Crosley read her work, transporting listeners to the dating scene in New York and expertly delivering moments of wry humor and witty banter. Lola's inner meditations on love, relationships, and gender dynamics are propelled by an exciting and mysterious subplot. VERDICT While the final events of the book are slightly less satisfying, the outcome doesn't affect one's overall enjoyment. At the heart of the story is Crosley's talent for unpacking the paradoxes of love, commitment, and societal convention with humor and sensitivity.--Halie Theoharides

      Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading