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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?

Publisher Review

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 * The Times * 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 * New York Times * 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 * Mr Porter, Books of the Year 2022 * 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 * LA Times * 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 * Esquire * A witty and fantastical story of dating and experimental psychology in New York City . . . Thoroughly hilarious [and] sharply perceptive . . . Crosley has found the perfect fictional subject for her gimlet eye * Publishers Weekly, starred review * Like your favorite rom-com meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . . . Crosley casts a spell with lightning wit, devilish dialogue, and walloping truths about how little reason there is to anything resembling love * Booklist, starred review * A sharp, deliciously weird skewering of the cult of modern romance and that hackneyed term 'closure'. Pre-order for your sun lounger -- Pandora Sykes, Twitter Gobbled! Loved! . . . The author is at her best and that is a treat for all readers! -- Sarah Jessica Parker, Instagram Crosley is nothing if not ambitious here, interrogating contemporary wellness culture and the very nature of love as [her narrator] confronts a gauntlet of ghosts from her romantic past . . . It's Crosley's analytical acumen and gift for the striking metaphor that really gives the book life. Thoughtfully and humanely acerbic * Kirkus, starred review * Cult Classic makes an uproarious time of romantic carnage. Crosley captures the brutal mirror of past love, the slow creep of ambivalence into dread, and the sense that a detour can easily become a life -- Raven Leilani, author of LUSTER Cult Classic is aimed with deadly accuracy at those unfortunate enough to have dated only during the twenty-first century. It's witty (of course, because Sloane Crosley wrote it) and razor sharp, and very clever, ditto, but it's more romantic and redemptive than one had any right to expect. It also contains one-liners destined to appear on T-shirts and coffee mugs. It's so good. I couldn't stop reading it -- Nick Hornby I love a secret society, and I love a wry narrator alive to the mysteries and absurdities of the world. Cult Classic has both, taking us on a journey that, even as it unspools into comic mayhem, only becomes more real. Here is a book that is unbelievably smart on modern love and startup mystics alike, and a Manhattan that feels accurate down to the molecule. Sloane Crosley can do it all -- Robin Sloan, author of MR PENUMBRA'S 24-HOUR BOOKSTORE The witty, improbably propulsive rom-com you didn't know you were waiting for - and just the sparkling, slightly sinister love letter to New York City that New York City deserves. An effervescent delight -- Elif Batuman, author of THE IDIOT Did the comic romantic thriller exist before Sloane Crosley, or has she invented it? Either way, Cult Classic is a classic. Funny, suspenseful, unputdownable, here is one of America's wittiest writers at her best. A pleasure on every page -- Andrew Sean Greer, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning LESS