Crush Audiobook By Ada Calhoun cover art

Crush

A Novel

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Crush

By: Ada Calhoun
Narrated by: Robyn Maryke
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A Today show, New Yorker, Washington Post, New York Times, Time, Harper’s Bazaar, Town & Country, Bustle, Lit Hub, Zibby Owens, Marie Claire, AARP, Bloomberg, The Millions, Seattle Times, and Vulture Most Anticipated Book

“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.©2025 Ada Calhoun (P)2025 Penguin Audio Family Life Genre Fiction Marriage Funny Heartfelt

Critic reviews

“[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
All stars
Most relevant  
It’s as if she was describing my life and all the questions I asked myself.
While my journey and situation was different of course, the similarities, conflict and challenges I faced, helped me to have so many awe stricken moments of how so many things resonated with my soul and heart.
I will be listening to this again and again.

Thank you Ada.

This Spoke to my soul

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The story is so played out. Middle aged woman tired of taking care of everyone else and decides to be happy and live for herself. There is nothing mind blowing or even surprising.

Boring and trite

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If you feel even slightly unfulfilled in your marriage and life, proceed with caution. I loved it, but I need to sit with it for a while. Excellent.

Quite possibly life changing

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I love domestic dramas that raise important questions about love and marriage. This book struck some good notes along those lines, but the three central characters were miserable people. The husband was written as lazy and one-dimensional. The wife and her emotional affair partner were horribly pretentious and not half as clever as they thought they were. I kept listening because I was hoping that something very bad would happen to at least one of them. I was disappointed.

insufferable main characters

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