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Sign up todayCrush
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Learn more“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
When a husband asks his wife to consider what might be missing from their marriage, what follows surprises them both—sex, heartbreak and heart rekindling, and a rediscovered sense of all that is possible
She’s happy and settled and productive and content in her full life—a child, a career, an admirable marriage, deep friendships, happy parents, and a spouse she still loves. But when her husband urges her to address what the narrow labels of “husband” and “wife” force them to edit out of their lives, the very best kind of hell breaks loose.
Using the author’s personal experiences as a jumping-off point, Crush is about the danger and liberation of chasing desire, the havoc it can wreak, and most of all the clear sense of self one finds when the storm passes. Destined to become a classic novel of marriage, and tackling the big questions being asked about partnership in postpandemic relationships, Crush is a sharp, funny, seductive, and revelatory novel about holding on to everything it’s possible to love—friends, children, parents, passion, lovers, husbands, all of the world’s good books, and most of all one’s own deep sense of purpose.
Ada Calhoun is the author of Also a Poet, named one of the best books of 2022 by The New York Times, NPR, and The Washington Post, longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, and featured on the Today show and PBS NewsHour. Her other books include St. Marks Is Dead and the New York Times bestsellers Why We Can’t Sleep.
Reviews
"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
“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 Expand reviews
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