I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

Sloane Crosley has heard every Ferris Bueller's Day Off joke (for a grand total of 3,567 times) about her name. She attended a Christian-based summer camp for eight years, despite being "one hundred percent Jewish," and once ended up with the part of Mary in the Christmas-in-July nativity play. She had an impressively complicated time moving to a new apartment in New York City. And she has a knack for making just about any experience into a funny story.

I Was Told There'd Be Cake features fifteen essays ranging from childhood to present, some with coming-of-age themes, others about making transitions and embracing change, many about the ways in which we discover our own identities. The stories vary in length and can be read in any order; you can easily take a piece or two of Cake at a time or devour the whole thing in one sitting.

_{Photo © Riverhead Books}