I stumbled upon Sloane Crosley when I saw her first book of essays, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, in an offhand Mindy Kaling Instagram from December 25, 2014. How do I know so specifically when I exactly saw this book on this date on Mindy’s account?

Because I spent 30 minutes searching through all of her pictures until I found the exact one I'm talking about.

I thought it was such a funky cover, and I trust Mindy Kaling wholeheartedly as I’ve always felt like she and I were meant to be best friends who go on fun destination vacations and eat at cool restaurants with our cool and funny squad. So I often take her book recommendations.

After reading about Crosley’s experience at Bible summer camp despite being Jewish, what happened when she was the maid of honor at a wedding where everything went hilariously wrong, and an unbelievably relatable account about playing “The Oregon Trail” video game, I felt like Sloane was the newest member of me and Mindy Kaling’s super fun squad.

The Clasp has been on my list since its publication, but I only got it once it came out in paperback last year and only actually read it this year. Continuing the pattern of my Bad Readers picks, the long neglected novel became the next up on my summer reading list.

In The Clasp, we meet three college friends now on the brink of their 30’s. Kezia is working for a borderline lunatic jewelry designer, Victor is jobless and listless, and Nathaniel is still himself: attractive, arrogant - and incredibly alone.

While attending the wedding of one of their college friends, Victor finds himself alone in the room of the mother of the groom (drunk and delirious, as one does), until the mother of the groom finds him. Rather than growing concerned with the young stranger who took a nap on her bed, she begins to tell Victor the story of a missing necklace not unlike namesake of Guy de Maupassant’s short story “The Necklace.” Broke, jobless, and recently robbed, Victor becomes so obsessed with hunting down the necklace that he books a one way trip to Paris.

Meanwhile, Kezia is trying to appease her crazy boss’ crazy antics about their crazy necklace design and its broken clasp. As luck (and fiction) would have it, she too finds herself in Paris as well. After dealing with a very French clasp maker, Kezia comes to a very concerned conclusion that Victor has gone crazy enough to be searching for a fake necklace in Northern France.

Meanwhile, Nathaniel’s pilot didn’t get chosen, his former model/actress “friend” left him, and no one is as in awe of him as they were in his early 20’s. So he takes a trip to Paris.

Along the way, one falls in love with another, one falls out of love with another, one finds himself in a French prison, and all find themselves on three different adventures with the same destination. By the end of the novel, you can’t help but grin and feel as if you have personally just watched your old friends go on this wild and nearly magical whirlwind tour and come out alive. With on point humor and timely comedy dripping with sarcastic wit, The Clasp tells the story of what happens at the brink of adulthood and where we go afterward.