Leaked: Sample from Emily Gould

Afterwards we sit on the fire escape half-naked and smoke a cigarette. Because he spends so much time working out, his smoking seems glamorous --louche and earned, not depressing and desperate like my ex-boyfriend's. He passes the cigarette to me and looks away, letting the sunset caress his profile and make him look like a still from a French movie, his face in sharp focus against the tenement blocks and the taller towers in the distance, dark against the streaky pink summer sky. I exhale into a breeze that feels like a caress. The day has cooled and now the air is the exact temperature as the blood that's slowing its race through my veins. I slump against him and feel his body stiffen almost imperceptibly. He has five more minutes and then he really has to leave for wrestling, and besides, sex never seems to relax him. Sometimes, I've noticed, he wakes up in the morning with balled fists.

Hmm. It's just so easy. Now, I know we've given Sloane a lot of shit in the past, but wow. This leaked excerpt from Emily Gould's book proposal just gave me a whole new level of respect for Ms. Crosely. At least the samples I read from Sloane (no, I never read the book. yes, I am a hypocrite) were amusingly self-deprecating. And maybe some of Emily stories (told through her TATTOOS. um, yeah.) will be as well. But if it's gonna be a whole book of prose written in the style of a 14 year old girl trying to be deep, well then. The air is the exact temperature as the blood that's slowing its race through my veins? I call bullshit. Was the air 98.6 degrees? 'cause that's by no means "cool." Or is Emily Gould's core body temperature freakishly low? Is that why her writing is so sluggish?

Also, any bets on who the boy is? Based on the pics of Gawker/Page 6 writer Joshua David Stein and his muscley torso, I'm going with Josh. Which means ex-boyfriend is probably poor Hugh. You remember Hugh, right? Of course you do! Emily talked all about him and how she flirted inappropriately with Josh while they were till together? In that NY Times Magazine piece? Remember? Of course you do.

Anyway, to quote Emily, "While nothing that has happened to me in and of itself has been that noteworthy: Lots of young people have lived in big cities, and have had an assortment of strange and ordinary jobs… there are some truths about doing these things and about writing about them online that haven't yet been expressed."

That's true, dear. Nothing has been noteworthy. Which is why people hated your piece in the Sunday Magazine. And which is why they will tear apart your book. And while perhaps there are "some truths" that haven't been expressed, that doesn't mean they should be.

--Paige Sexie