Crush

Praise

“[In Crush,] Calhoun’s cleverest feat is blowing us along in this whirlwind of desire and possibility. As ever, Calhoun suggests, women must carve some new path through a thicket of emotional briars. That may sound grim, but rest assured this is not another tale about women’s sexuality that’s so depressing.”
—The Washington Post

“Ensnaring… Crush is sometimes so dry or boring it’s funny; other times it’s euphoric, magical or dramatic, and a breezy humor brushes most every page… Calhoun makes the specific universal by pointing it all back toward the puzzle most of us spend our whole lives working out: love in its many forms.”
—Associated Press

“Calhoun’s unnamed heroine is a literary powerhouse bursting at the seams… what becomes abundantly clear is that the true romance at the heart of the book is a recovery of self… Crush reveals the sly ways we delude ourselves into accepting what’s good enough and the liberating ways we can recover our joie de vivre as well as our autonomy.”
—The Boston Globe

“Calhoun has a gift for explaining complicated emotions with concise, carefully chosen prose.”
—Vulture

“Ultimately, Crush explores when to realize a partnership has reached an impasse, and when to take yourself on a new adventure.”
—Jezebel

“Her giddy new romance sets the stage for an exploration of marital constructs and what it means to seek desire at any age.”
—Bustle

“Crush doesn’t follow a traditional novel structure. It reads like a memoir: There is minimal dialogue, even fewer scenes, and we spend most of the novel inside the narrator’s head. Though it’s not a bad place to be — she is brilliant in her introspection and delightfully witty. She can also be exhaustingly angsty, indecisive and self-pitying. She is a complex character in the best way: annoyingly relatable… Instead of a dramatic affair filled with scandal and betrayal, the novel offers a raw, introspective exploration of desire and self-discovery.”
—The Daily Californian

“Warm and smart and gripping.”
—Curtis Sittenfeld, New York Times bestselling author of Romantic Comedy

“Ada Calhoun writes with absolute clarity about the giddiest and most destabilizing feeling—the crush. This novel made me feel dizzy and I loved every second. Calhoun can seduce me any day of the week.”
—Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow

“The word ‘crush’ often conjures the innocence of adolescence—a time when your life story isn’t yet written and anything is possible. But what happens when that dormant feeling is awakened in middle age? Ada Calhoun’s Crush is a gripping fever dream of a book leading the reading into the beguiling depths of desire, ecstasy, and obsession.”
—Molly Ringwald

“Crush marks Ada Calhoun’s arrival as a novelist, and what an incredibly explosive arrival it is. This book is a sumptuous exploration of how desire takes us over without a shred of moral hedging. A vertiginous—yet somehow also clarifying—novel that will grab you by your shoulders and shake you until you feel alive.”
—Isaac Fitzgerald, New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts

“I didn’t just read Crush; I inhaled it like it would save my life. Calhoun captures the chaotic experience of a marriage’s dissolution and a new midlife romance with the insight and humor she brings to all her work. I loved this book. And I loved its honest depiction of what love can do to and for us.”
—Bethany Ball, author of The Pessimists

“Visceral, intelligent, funny, emotional, and layered. A revolutionary romance for ‘good girls’ among us.”
—Shauna Niequist, author of the New York Times bestseller I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet

In Crush, desire is an irresistible force. Ada Calhoun is a master at capturing the way we live now, and her propulsive, witty, dreamy debut novel made me feel like I was exchanging secrets with my smartest friend. A heady delight.
—Claire Dederer, national bestselling author of Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma

“Calhoun captures the giddy high of desire. This romp through a middle-aged crush is as smart and sharp as you’d expect from the author of Also a Poet. Calhoun’s quick-paced story invites readers to lose themselves to the possibility of love taking unexpected shapes, while also providing a jumping-off point for exploring art and culture. Regardless of how readers engage with the story, they will find in Crush an opportunity to view the world through a new lens.”
—Bookpage, Starred Review

“Crush (such a charged word) interrogates all that we think we know about love and soul mates, commitment and conviction, while tracking the long struggle to fully become oneself and do right…. [An] angsty, metaphysical, literature-besotted love story.”
—Booklist Starred Review

“Chock-full of great lines … [a]nything Ada Calhoun wants to write is well worth reading.”
—Kirkus Review