
âAda Calhoun writes with absolute clarity about the giddiest and most destabilizing feelingâthe crush. This novel made me feel dizzy and I loved every second. Calhoun can seduce me any day of the week.â âEmma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow
Featured on the Today Show as the month's best romance! Kwame Alexander called it âvery seductive, an interesting take on marriage and loveâ
Praised by the Associated Press (âensnaring⊠a breezy humor brushes most every pageâ), Washington Post (âa wry critique of the sexual confines of marriageâ), Boston Globe (âfeels like a brainy rom-com that could have been adapted by the late great Nora Ephronâ), and with a *starred review* at BookPage (âthis romp through a middle-aged crush is as smart and sharp as youâd expect from the author of Also a Poetâ) and a *starred review* in Booklist (an "angsty, metaphysical, literature-besotted love story")
New York Magazine put Crush in its Approval Matrixâin the Highbrow & Brilliant quadrantâand Emily Gould called the novel âdeep and thought-provoking, with hot sex scenesâ in her Book Gossip newsletter for The Cut
Appeared on Slateâs âDeath Sex, & Moneyâ Podcast, recorded live with Anna Sales in front of an audience during Slateâs On-Air Fest last week, and on WNYC âAll of It.âÂ
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2025 according to Time, The Washington Post, Vulture, Marie Claire, The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, Bustle, Lit Hub, AARP, The Millions, Goodreads, Bloomberg, The Seattle Times.
Ada Calhounâs debut novel mines the literary canon and the heart of middle age and turns up fresh wisdom about the danger and liberation of chasing desire, illuminating new ways to embrace freedom, ambition, and partnership.Â
Those staggered by Calhounâs âbrave, blistering . . . fierce, dissonant, yet compellingâ* nonfictionâher critically acclaimed memoir Also A Poet and her New York Times bestseller Why We Canât Sleep: Womenâs New Midlife Crisisâwill be delighted to find that Crush takes everything Calhoun absorbed about the lives of women and their relationships through her research andâusing the bones of her own postpandemic reckoning as a jumping-off pointâ delivers, in fiction this time, another book that âmakes you feel less crazy.â**Â
Sharp and revelatory, Crush implores us to savor and hold on to everything itâs possible to loveâfriends, children, parents, passion, lovers, husbands, all of the worldâs good books, and most of all oneâs own deep sense of purpose.
* The Washington Post on Also a Poet. Â ** Kelly Ripa on Why We Canât Sleep
âThe word âcrushâ often conjures the innocence of adolescenceâa time when your life story isnât yet written and anything is possible. But what happens when that dormant feeling is awakened in middle age? Ada Calhounâs Crush is a gripping fever dream of a book leading the reader into the beguiling depths of desire, ecstasy, and obsession.ââ Molly Ringwald
â "Suspense is the primary draw for this angsty, metaphysical, literature-besotted love story... 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."â Donna Seaman, Booklist

Praise for Crush
