Crush
Writers Reflect on Love, Longing, and the Power of Their First Celebrity Crush
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A star-studded collection of essays from acclaimed and bestselling authors and celebrities that illuminates the lasting power of desire and longing, and celebrates our initiation into the euphoria, pain, and mystery that is our first celebrity crush.
You never forget your first crush . . .
CRUSH brings together stories of heartbreak, humiliation, and hilarity from a roster of popular luminaries, including James Franco, Carrie Fisher, Stephen King, Roxane Gay, Jodi Picoult, Emily Gould, and Hanna Rosin, who share intimate memories of that first intense taste of love. Here are funny, whimsical, sometimes cringe-worthy tales of falling head over heels for River Phoenix, Mary Tyler Moore, Howard Cosell, Jared Leto, and a host of other pop culture icons.
A few contributors channeled their devotion into obsessively writing embarrassing fan letters. Some taped pics in school lockers. Others decorated their bedroom walls with posters. For tweenaged Karin Tanabe, it was discovering bad boy Andy Garcia—playing the gun-loving mobster Vincent Corleone in The Godfather III. Barbara Graham unsuccessfully staked out an apartment on Park Avenue for a glimpse of her blue-eyed soulmate, Paul Newman. There was only one puppy for six-year-old Jodi Picoult—Donny Osmond—while Jamie Brisick’s pre-teen addiction was Speed Racer.
Swoon-worthy and unforgettable, the essays in CRUSH will leave you laughing, make you cry, and keep you enthralled—just like your first celebrity crush.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This charming book takes a look at first crushes the ones that leave an "indelible image" and happen when our young selves believe "anything and everything both possible and futile." Jodi Picoult recalls running away at six years old, taking her Donny Osmond pillowcase; Nicola Yoon "kissed Michael Jackson every day for over a year." Some crushes were painful and scary, awakening feelings of "forbidden" love and a respite from family life. Some weren't about love at all but the ability to feel part of a "choir of lonely voices." The contrast between crush and crushee is what makes some of the stories so appealing: the 12-year-old boy in Okinawa in 1955 who falls for Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan, the "short Jewish guy" crushing on towering basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. One crush is on a cartoon character (Speed Racer) and two involve Little House on the Prairie. The authors do a remarkable job collecting different types of crushes while keeping the reminiscences short and sweet (one is just half a page). Carolyn Parkhurst's zippy celebrity fantasy provides a pleasingly lighthearted conclusion to a book that balances heartbreak and relief, blind love and terror.
