Cult Classic (Crosley)

Cult Classic
by Sloane Crosley (2022)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a Pandemic Book Club selection

We haven't had the zoom call yet, but advance word in the messenger chat is that it's a thumbs down, all around.

I don't know what to expect from many club books because I tend to read them electronically, so I don't have the back cover like I used to have. I did read a synopsis on Good Reads when I voted (and I think I voted for this book -- I honestly don't remember), but I'd forgotten whatever it said.

Basically, think of me as a scifi/fantasy guy who watches a lot of only movies, a lot of "classics", some of which have a "cult" following. So I didn't know what this was really going to be about. About nothing I would've expected.

The prologue goes on about ghosts waiting their turn, winning a lottery, to return to Earth for three minutes, and wait could they do with those three minutes. This has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the book, unless it's supposed to be an allegory for some of the old boyfriends she runs into.

Next up is a brutal Chapter 1 that runs for about 45 pages when every other chapter is a more reasonable 10-15. Within each chapter, the narrator, Lola, goes off on many tangents, digresses about whatever, recalls weird events and comes back to the present. It's lmost like there's a string of short stories with the most tenuous of connections holding them together that gets woven into the story. The story itself is one that will leave you wondering for about 80% of the book what they actual story is.

The book isn't terrible. It's just not good.

Lola used to write for Psychology Today, working for Clive, who was a typical cheap rich person. In the beginning of the book, in that long into or in the prologue, we discover that Clive is dead. The story that is told is about when he was alive, so I'd forgotten that he was dead by the end of the book. One of those things. Actually, it's probably better that she was upfront about it, otherwise, the ending might've seem too convenient.

Lola's friend is named Vadis, but I found from the audiobook, it's pronounced "Voddy", rhymes with "Toddy". And the author reads the book, so she should know. (Of course, she should be more interested in what she's reading, too. Sometimes, she sounds like it's dull.) Vadis and Clive bring Lola to an old synagouge where they have a cult of some kind working. Vadis knows that Lola is having second thoughts about her engagement to "Boots", who I kept forgeting was her finance and kept thinking was her cat.

Lola had run into two of her ex-boyfriends in the past couple of nights. Clive says that that's because he is making Lola a test case for his new program. Each night she'll walk around Chinatown and she'll attract one of her former boyfriends and see if she still has any feelings for them. She can work through her anxieties to see if she really wants to marry Boots.

Lola doesn't buy into this nonsense, and she's the one calling it a cult. Clive is definitely the spiritual leader, and everyone is working for him for free.

After another boyfriend appears, Lola starts to believe that there might be something to it, so she keeps returning to the synagouge (Clive has a weird name for it based on a weird old painting), and answering questions.

The story doesn't actually present itself until it's nearly over. Basically, there's a twist, but it's not like there was much to twist in the first place.

Is this the worst book the book club has covered? Far from it. Was it good? Not really.

UPDATE: General consensus from the Zoom call was the book was not well-liked and the protagonist was not well-liked. (Note that the participants were majority female, 5-3.)