I absolutely loved Sloane Crosley’s debut collection of humorous essays, I Was Told There’d Be Cake – and I wasn’t alone. Not only did she get rave reviews from the likes of Jonathan Lethem and David Sedaris (who suggests you wear a diaper for reading this follow-up), but it was picked up by HBO for a new, Larry-David-type, series.

In her second wisecracking, reflective, charmingly self-deprecating collection, Crosley once again explores the perils and pleasures of suburban girlhood, eking out an existence in New York while working entry-level jobs (and living in apartments where your bedroom is demarcated using bookshelves or wooden screens as room dividers), and fumbling through budget overseas travels. She attends a friend’s wedding in Alaska, which is characterised by 20-hour-long days, the purest water ever, marauding bears, strange murders and – worst of all – Sarah Palin. She travels solo to Lisbon, after daring herself to go wherever her finger landed on her world globe. And she unexpectedly revisits a high school nemesis in a Chinese restaurant toilet.

Sloane Crosley is laugh-out-loud funny and utterly winning. If you haven’t already, make her acquaintance now.