Smashed

Dec 22, 2007 Wednesday rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: no one without a strong prescription to anti-depressants

This book is 333 out of 340 pages of self-loathing and misery with an sad attempt at a happy ending/after school special-style lesson found in the last 7 pages.

In between choking fits of laughter over the overly-dramatic stare coming from the author's picture on the back, I became annoyed---more than usual.

Were it not for the author's poetic descriptions, I never would have bothered to finish this pointless story.
It's a memoir from a white-bred adolescent female binge drinking through highschoo...more

like 24 likes · see review

Sep 02, 2008 Caitlin rated it 1 of 5 stars

I hate this girl. I think she was melodramatic and obnoxious and I don't know what her problem was. I found all of her "statistical" references to be preachy and I found a lot of inconsistencies that bothered me. Her college experience didn't seem all that different from a lot of people I know, so I don't know why she got to get a book deal out of it. I also don't know how she suddenly found so much clarity after quitting drinking for like a month. I think she is reaching big time in a lot of he...more

like 30 likes · see review

Dec 27, 2008 La Petite Américaine rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Bored people

Recommended to La Petite Américaine by: My own morbid curiosity

Shelves: meh-whatever, auto-bios-etc

I was bound and determined to rip this book apart -- literally, and figuratively in my review -- when I was half through it, but I slowly changed my mind towards the end.

Most of the book is about the author's experiences binge-drinking, being depressed, and drinking more to deal with her depression. Her experiences are valid, after all, this is her story. But her listing of statistics, the intellectualizing of her actions, the constant guilt about her past, and the blaming of everything else ir...more I was bound and determined to rip this book apart -- literally, and figuratively in my review -- when I was half through it, but I slowly changed my mind towards the end.

Most of the book is about the author's experiences binge-drinking, being depressed, and drinking more to deal with her depression. Her experiences are valid, after all, this is her story. But her listing of statistics, the intellectualizing of her actions, the constant guilt about her past, and the blaming of everything else irritated the hell out of me. She blames her friends, society, her sorority, college, the alcohol and advertising industries, men, and basically everyone but herself for her actions. Her victim stance drove me batty. Please. No one shoved the booze down your throat, chica.

And I can comment on this because I had eerily similar experiences as this girl. I, too, read Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton religiously, I got drunk at a very young age with my teenage friend, I didn't have my stomach pumped but I rode along with my 13 year-old best friend in the ambulance after her alcohol overdose. I, too, had a teenage penpal stop writing to me because I told her in a letter about how I'd drank beer with friends. I, too, went to a college called SU where alcohol ruled the campus, I got drunk and fooled around with guys and let alcohol become a friend and companion to me for far too long. I, too, moved to NYC after graduation and found the city to be a place where it was impossible not to drink, and like her, I'm not an alcoholic but I abused alcohol. There is no shame in this, there is no one to blame. We grew up in a time when our role models were grunge rockers and sobriety was for dorks. Life is hard, being a young woman is hard, and blaming the evils that we first learned to label in our Women's Studies classes in college -- i.e., men, ads, corporate America -- is pointless and flawed. Oh, the alcohol, the horrible, HORRIBLE alcohol, oh, what a TERRIBLE, SEXIST world we live in. Pshaw. It's not sexism, it's not alcohol, it's you. Get over it.

The best part of this book is (in the last four pages) when she makes the decision to stop drinking and realizes that nothing has changed except in her mind. This is the one and only time in her story that she takes personal responsibility for her actions, her life, and herself. She ends her story in some position of power, and that makes the thing worth reading ... sort of. Go Ask Alice was way better.

Whatever. (less)

like 9 likes · see review

Jul 09, 2007 Kristen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood is a work of nonfiction by Koren Zailckas, chronicling her love affair with alcohol. The book’s organizational structure is telling itself, split into four sections: “Initiation,” “The Usual,” “Excess,” and “Abuse.” It begins with Koren’s first taste, swigging sips of Southern Comfort on the sly, peer-pressured into it by her friend Natalie at age 14. Koren then moves through high school and college and has what almost anyone would consider a normal relations...more Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood is a work of nonfiction by Koren Zailckas, chronicling her love affair with alcohol. The book’s organizational structure is telling itself, split into four sections: “Initiation,” “The Usual,” “Excess,” and “Abuse.” It begins with Koren’s first taste, swigging sips of Southern Comfort on the sly, peer-pressured into it by her friend Natalie at age 14. Koren then moves through high school and college and has what almost anyone would consider a normal relationship with drinking throughout her education, although peppered with occasional moments of blackouts and vomiting. Within months of graduating college, she stops drinking altogether. While her experiences with alcohol aren’t unusual, I think her underlying motivations are.

Koren wants the reader to understand that she considers her drinking history overindulgent. She makes this clear on the cover, a seemingly real-life snapshot of the author slumped over in a chair, her hair gratefully covering her shameful face. She also punctuates the text with footnotes and statistics that tear the reader from the narrative, serving as a reminder that this book has an agenda. Heavy-handed tactics like these are informational and clearly prove that the problem is bigger than Koren herself, but give away the author’s secret: she didn’t think telling her story flat out would work as an allegory to apply to America at large. This detracted from all the wonderful attributes of the book, like Koren’s snarky sense of humor, her spot-on characterizations, and completely realistic retelling of the transition from childhood to adulthood, from innocence to wisdom, through the holding tank of extended adolescence called college. What’s unfortunate is that these wonderful facets of Koren’s writing could have easily made the story a very successful cautionary fable, rendering those distracting statistics unnecessary.

If this were a different story, with a different subject matter, I’m sure I’d love it. I love the author’s writing style, and she weaves a wonderful story. Smashed comes off as didactic though, narrating the various shames Koren experiences after drinking too much, the kind of things that are nationally publicized when they happen to today’s young starlets. This “Don’t turn into Paris Hilton” adage is clear from the beginning, and quickly becomes overkill.

The real problem, rather than Koren’s drinking, is her inability to stand on her own. She drinks because she surrounds herself with stronger personalities who drink, and follows their lead. She goes from person to person, admitting that she patterns all of her relationships, both platonic and romantic, after the one with Natalie, who “will be the blueprint for the kamikaze girlfriends… the suicidal personalities who seize the day by letting go of any expectations for a tomorrow.” If Koren chose better people with whom to surround herself, or if she blazed her own path rather than always passively going along with what was socially accepted, her life story would read very differently. She even uses alcohol as something to hide behind, something to rely upon to relate to people and use as her mouthpiece. It’s not her relating to others- it’s the booze. It wasn’t dependency on alcohol that thwarted her growth, but rather her dependency on others for identity and self-worth.

All that said, Smashed is still an entertaining, thoughtful, honest coming-of-age story. Koren Zailckas is a talented writer who I look forward to reading again, hoping her careful eye will be trained on personal strength rather than personal weakness.(less)

like 5 likes · see review

Mar 18, 2008 Liz rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: no one. absolutely no one.

I found this book to be droll, trite, and anticlimactic; more akin to something for a church confessional and less to anything that should sprung on the general public.
Zailckas often brushes against compelling issues of this "drunken girldom": the odd and alienating social structure erected and maintained by many (possibly the majority) of females in the United States, if not extending beyond. The author does precious more than flatly recount the multitude of times she found herself drunk out o...more

like 14 likes · see review

May 11, 2007 Jaime rated it 2 of 5 stars

The entire time I was reading this, I questioned the reliability of the author, a severe alcohol abuser who began drinking at a young age. There were gaping holes in the narrative which she filled with a bunch of unnecessary rhetoric about alcoholism/binge drinking in general. Even worse was the ending during which Zailckas droned on and on about how the government, advertisers, and men in general piss her off. On a positive note, the book is well written, but then that just makes me wonder how...more

like 7 likes · see review

Jun 27, 2008 Anittah rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who are currently drunk

(From my Amazon review, written 11/2006)

Smashed is a book that I hope Zailckas will consider with embarrassment as she grows up, assuming she ever does. Zailckas' writing takes herself far too seriously and attempts to inject poetic turns of phrase far too often. Bottling her parents' alcohol buzz like a firefly? Ugh. Trying to claim that all women remember their first drink? Gross.

Her "Woe is me, cautionary tale, this is all so serious, look at how I can weave artsy-sounding phrases into my pas...more

like 16 likes · see review

Nov 02, 2007 Msmeemee rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who's spoken the word "alcohol"

Shelves: psychology, biographies

when it comes to memoirs, i can't really critique the content only because it's about someone's real-life experiences. but i can critique the delivery. plain and simple, i love koren's writing style. it's easy to read yet vivid and insightful. i think so many girls and young women can relate to her experiences, it's a validation of being female in this society and the relationship females develop with alcohol as a way to cope with the pressure. plus, as someone in the psychology field, it's a go...more when it comes to memoirs, i can't really critique the content only because it's about someone's real-life experiences. but i can critique the delivery. plain and simple, i love koren's writing style. it's easy to read yet vivid and insightful. i think so many girls and young women can relate to her experiences, it's a validation of being female in this society and the relationship females develop with alcohol as a way to cope with the pressure. plus, as someone in the psychology field, it's a good resource for clinicians who work with individuals that abuse alcohol or for clinicians who aren't familiar with these issues and need a first-hand account of what alcohol abuse is like. five stars.

EDIT: after reading some of the other readers' comments, i have a couple things i'd like to address. a lot of people say that the storyline isn't interesting. i guess with a memoir, it's more about the author's willingness to make herself vulnerable to a wider audience than it is about an interesting story. even though her experiences with alcohol are common, her motivations for drinking are of key importance because they are actually symptoms of a society that places men and women in very rigid boxes. if you're looking for pure entertainment, look elsewhere.

other readers thought she was a whiny, spoiled brat from a good background. this doesn't make someone exempt from having their own internalized demons. other readers commented on her immaturity as a writer and as someone recovering from alcohol abuse. there was no resolution and some were not satisfied with her level of insight about her own abuse. did anyone stop to think that perhaps writing this memoir is part of her recovery process? and as far a resolution, there is no concrete, static resolution to substance abuse. recovery is an ongoing process. and some people don't ever recover fully. if your relationship to a substance is that binding, it can be difficult to completely let go of the abuser mindset.

i think we as an audience can learn a lot about alcohol abuse by our very reactions. a lot of people had no sympathy for the author. in my eyes, i think this exhibits society's relative indifference and lack of compassion for those who are struggling with personal issues and how alcohol and other substances can be a life jacket if only in the short-run. there was one comment about how the author's abuse was everyone's fault but her own. personally, i did not get that, but if that was the general feeling about her, it's an honest portrayal of people who abuse substances. i was especially appalled by one reader's comment about date rape and how the author should've known she would be raped if she hung out in frat houses all the time. in a way, this comment is enraging yet enlightening at the same time. and i think this is where the book is brilliant; it draws out all the biases, all the stereotypes, the myths, the victim-blaming attitudes, and our overall lack of understanding regarding substance abuse that still pervade our society. and i think it's fantastic that the author wrote the book shortly after trying to abstain; her feelings and insecurities are still fresh and we can experience that right along with her. it gives us a perspective of someone who is struggling to find herself without her alcoholic crutch.(less)

like 13 likes · see review

Jul 03, 2007 kira rated it 1 of 5 stars

Ha! The writing is dreadful and juvenile; it's actually funny. It reads like the author just took her final paper for Psych 101 and beefed it up with some personal anecdotes. However -- it does make a few astute observations about college women and drinking. She tackles a provocative topic with candor and honesty, despite the cringe-inducing writing.

like 4 likes · see review

Jun 13, 2007 Tara rated it 1 of 5 stars

Awful. Horrendous. Self-pitying and self-righteous and self-absorbed. Pointless. Poorly written. Pathetic. If I could give it less stars, I would.

In the end, it's everyone's fault the author had a drinking problem...everyone except the author herself.

like 9 likes · see review

May 15, 2007 Heather rated it 1 of 5 stars

I love nothing more than memoirs about miserable childhoods, but this girl is just a whiny, entitled, self-centered biyotch. Her problems and drama were of her own making. Avoid at all costs.

like 5 likes · see review

Jul 29, 2007 Angela rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who works with teens

I completely disagree with the author and the reviewers of this memoir. This book made me ANGRY.

To begin, she has SERIOUS issues that she avoids. I was left with far more questions by the end of the book than when I began. And--where the hell were her parents? They suck repeatedly throughout this memoir. Give me a break. Are they that clueless, or are we not getting the entire story? And speaking of not the whole story--how did she manage to graduate in four years and be able to land and keep a...more

like 12 likes · see review

Apr 23, 2013 Erin rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: young women entering college

I first read this book as a sophomore in college, when I was grappling with some alcohol issues spurred on by having an older group of friends, attending a university with liberal drinking rules and "thoughtful" punishments for underage drinking, and the thrill of living on my own in a tolerant, safe environment where I could experiment at will. My mom gave me this book to help me process my own actions and determine what drinking meant for me, in my life.

I read it a second time, recently, as I...more I first read this book as a sophomore in college, when I was grappling with some alcohol issues spurred on by having an older group of friends, attending a university with liberal drinking rules and "thoughtful" punishments for underage drinking, and the thrill of living on my own in a tolerant, safe environment where I could experiment at will. My mom gave me this book to help me process my own actions and determine what drinking meant for me, in my life.

I read it a second time, recently, as I reevaluate the impact drinking has on my adult life, and attempt to finally transition away from unhealthy college-level drinking. So, I do have an investment in this story. I believe the narrator's story is one worth telling, and I believe the overarching issue of binge drinking and the dangerous level its reached on college campuses is something worth talking over and over about. I understand that, like it or not, binge drinking often has much more disastrous effects for young women. I also understand that alcoholism in women is something women are often hesitant to address or talk about, because it's a problem that is seen as inherently masculine. So I get it. I get where the author is coming from. But reviews of this book that emphasize the extent to which she blames her environment are right - she started and began to enjoy drinking to get drunk at a very young age, so it seems surprising that the level of drinking she found in college came as a shock to her. I agree that society does young people a disservice by failing to address the issue of binge drinking, but I don't know that her complete indictment of her friends, men around her, her sorority, the college environment generally, the alcohol and advertising industries, and society as a whole, is well-supported. I have been able to reconcile many of my actions and behaviors by taking responsibility for them, but her tone sometimes becomes preachy and she veers dangerously into slut-shaming, especially when talking about the other actions of girls from her sorority, whom she blames harshly for their alcohol-induced behaviors, while letting herself off lightly by saying she was only influenced by those around her. What made me saddest about this story was not that the author decided to stop drinking or that she felt she drank too much, but that throughout the entire story, she struggled so much to make genuine girlfriends. She seems to blame this both on alcohol and on the perceived quality of the women around her, but I think this might have been a more interesting exploration for the author to make than that of her drinking problem.

That said, this kind of drinking and the ramifications that come from the behavior are shared experiences among many girls, and the story is valuable for that reason. The writing style is accessible. I do wish the narrator would have possibly explored taking more responsibility for her actions and addressing her problems without blaming others and going cold turkey. But I do think the exploration of problem drinking that isn't alcoholism is a valuable way of exploring the way that binge drinking can change lives before it ruins them. The author seems to suggest that there is no way to live within the culture in moderation - that the only way to be healthy is to isolate one's self. I don't know if I agree with that, and I wonder if the author's relatively young age at the time of publication influenced her attitude (which can come off as naive or bratty) and her choices. I wonder what this memoir would have been like had it been published several years later, once the shock of early adulthood wore off. I would recommend this book to young women entering college or young women who feel intimidated or isolated by the social scene on large universities.

The author was clearly very influenced by studying with Mary Karr, and when I read the book the second time, I wondered if, in writing a memoir about her own drinking, she was trying to echo her mentor's successes. (less)

like 1 like · see review

Apr 14, 2013 Betsy rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-fiction

This is the autobiography of a young woman who began drinking at about age 14 and continued until her early 20s. Although she claims not to be an alcoholic her book paints a picture someone who is barely able to function without alcohol. Her teen years are series of blackouts, possible rape and abuse and one instance of stomach pumping. Her parents are, at best, indifferent and, at worst, enablers.

The book itself seems to have no direction or point. It is a long and eventually tedious recounting...more

like 1 like · see review

Feb 08, 2009 kathi added it Recommends it for: absolutely no one

Shelves: books-read-in-2009

This is a horrible book full of wrong information about alcoholism...she justifies, rationalizes, makes excuses to make her drinking appear "normal"...she describes so many situations that "normal" drinkers do not do...she has blackouts, hangovers, sneaky behavior, tolerance, loss of control, denial...all symptoms used to diagnosis alcoholism...she denied having any symptoms at all and rationalized this by comparing herself to other "alcoholics" by saying she had never done those things so she c...more

like 3 likes · see review

Jul 23, 2007 Kristen rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

God, this book was awful. I really don't care if she feels guilty about drunken partying that she did ten years ago. One of the few books I could not even finish.

like 5 likes · see review

Jul 30, 2007 Holly rated it 2 of 5 stars

I didn't love this book. The author is self-centered and what happens to her is obvious and not interesting. That being said, it was a fast read.

like 3 likes · see review

Feb 18, 2009 TheSaint rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, non-fiction

Alcohol abuse as a feminist issue? Author Koren Zailckas begins her harrowing memoir of nine years of binge drinking with a dedication to her mother, for first making her "mindful of women's issues." Truly, Zailckas makes a good case that binge drinking (and its consequences whether drunk or sober) is societally more objectionable for women. Indeed, the reader will walk away from Smashed thinking all eighth-grade, white, suburban females are destined to a desperate life of blackouts and hangover...more

like 2 likes · see review

Jan 25, 2008 Frank rated it 3 of 5 stars

Is it wrong that I found this hilarious instead of eye-opening? TO SHOTS!

like 2 likes · see review

Mar 05, 2008 Leslie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Having been a college student at a work-hard, party hard university around the same time as the author, I was highly impressed by how well she understands and writes about drinking culture on campuses (particularly the female experience). I think she nails it. I appreciate her debunking many myths about alcohol use among adolescent girls and women. Parents can do everything right (not that there is one right way to address alcohol with your kids, but that's an aside), the girl or woman can have...more

like 7 likes · see review

Dec 06, 2007 Grace rated it 4 of 5 stars

his is another one I didn't read, but listened to. And there was a big gap in my listening, as I didn't make it to the gym for the whole month of December, for various and sundry reasons.

During the time when I wasn't listening to it, though, I was still thinking about it. And when I put my iPod headphones back on during my flight to Oregon for Christmas, it took only a minute for me to be right back in Zailckas' story.

Whether you agree with Zailckas' conclusions or not (I haven't totally decided...more his is another one I didn't read, but listened to. And there was a big gap in my listening, as I didn't make it to the gym for the whole month of December, for various and sundry reasons.

During the time when I wasn't listening to it, though, I was still thinking about it. And when I put my iPod headphones back on during my flight to Oregon for Christmas, it took only a minute for me to be right back in Zailckas' story.

Whether you agree with Zailckas' conclusions or not (I haven't totally decided yet, myself), this is a great book. It is part memoir, with Zailckas chronicling her drinking life from her first drink as a young teenager to quitting in her early twenties; part treatise on the fucked up nature of America's relationship to alcohol, with a specific emphasis on the relationship between booze and young women. These two threads meld together very nicely, with the author making it clear that she's after more than a retelling of her story, which is, in most ways, pretty average. Zailckas says that she is not an alcoholic, but that she has a dysfunctional relationship with alcohol. This dysfunctional relationship, however, is both shared by many of her peers and condoned by society, and the places in which she points this out are the most thought-provoking in her book.

The stories Zailckas tells about her drinking, particularly in college, are very like those I and my friends experience, and very like those experienced by college students across the country. Very little about them is exceptional, and on the whole they aren't even all that extreme. Zailkcas experiences alcohol poisoning, blackouts, and even possible date rape, but none of these stories are all that unique. One fear I have about this book is that people will misread it as a worse-case scenario cautionary tale. It's not. Koren Zailckas mostly did what was expected of her, mostly succeeded in the ways in which she was supposed to (being a cheerleader, joining a sorority, graduating from college, getting a job), and mostly got off easy. However, the normalcy of her experiences, and of the emotional retardation she attributes to them, doesn't make them any less of a problem. Hopefully readers of this book realize that.

Zailckas' conclusions about alcohol may lean on the side of teetolating a bit too much for some readers. She is not a believer in moderation, and does not seem to think most people are even willing or capable of drinking moderately. This may strike some readers as overly dramatic, but given the strong argument Zailckas makes between the "typical" use of alcohol among young people and a whole host of other issues, I can see how she gets there. While I never abused alcohol to the extent she did in college, many of the people I know did, and I can definitely see an argument for this abuse being a detriment not only to their lives at that time, but to the growing up they were supposed to be doing.

A final thing about this book I find striking is the short retrospect with which Zailckas writes. It is my understanding that she quit drinking at 22 or 23 and published Smashed at 24. Normally, memoirs having to do with things about which an individual is not proud, such as substance abuse, take longer to come to the surface, and I admire Zailckas' willingness to write about these issues without further distance from them. In some ways, it means more coming from someone who isn't far removed from it than it does coming from someone who is writing about his/her more distant past. It's more authentic, even if it does also have the prosletizing smack of the newly converted.(less)

like · see review

Aug 04, 2007 Celeste rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: women

Shelves: readinthepast, 2007

I began this book really wanting to like it. I assumed that it was a cautionary tale against underage drinking, and that appealed to me. Being the child of an alcoholic, I've seen a lot and feel pretty strongly about alcoholism and alcohol abuse. I figured I'd like it as a given.

But I didn't. Her images are strong and powerful. There were passages that I could smell the stale cigarettes and feel the burn of hard liquor in my throat, but during the college period of her life it gets hazy and some...more

like 2 likes · see review

Feb 22, 2008 Melissa rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

like 2 likes · see review

Jan 03, 2009 Danielle rated it 1 of 5 stars

Not very well written. Gets very boring about half way through, which maybe is the point of it. I will never know because I am not going to finish it. The author is not very likable or doesn't present her story in any way that makes you feel anything for her. She makes a lot of excuses for the way she acted during High School and college that I can't buy into. This from someone who has been known to enjoy a few drinks every now and then.

The bottom line - the quality of the writing is not good e...more

like 2 likes · see review

Jan 29, 2013 Katherine rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

This book is a memoir broken up into four ��chapters�� wittily entitled ��Initiation��, ��the Usual��, ��Excess��, and ��Abuse��.

In ��Initiation��, Zailckas enlightens the reader as to what lead to the beginnings of her alcoholism. Her first drinks hidden away at a social event are well documented, and many readers may be able to relate to her experience. She leads the reader into the tale of the first time she was officially ��drunk�� with a friend who disappears with a boy and co...more

like · see review

Feb 16, 2009 Korinna rated it 4 of 5 stars

During my time reading this book, my opinions would often change. This is a story about a girl, middle class, white, from a "normal", decent upbringing who starts to drink heavily at 15 and continues for about ten years. Sometimes while reading this, I found myself thinking "why am i reading this? it isn't that interesting. I mean, this is no different from the experiences of many young girls in mainstream culture, and in many ways similar to those of my own." but that is exactly why this is an...more

like 4 likes · see review

Jan 23, 2009 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2006, memoir

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. i’m glad k got this for me from the library. i thought i’d really like it, and i did like some of it.
i thought it would mostly be a memoir of the author’s drunken childhood--which it was for the most part. but then, part way through the last chapter, she tried to make it some sociopolitical thing about girls and drinking and how its bad and why we do it and how she talked to all these other women--which she’d never mentioned before--who’d had similar experiences to hers. but she didn’t offer a...more i’m glad k got this for me from the library. i thought i’d really like it, and i did like some of it.
i thought it would mostly be a memoir of the author’s drunken childhood--which it was for the most part. but then, part way through the last chapter, she tried to make it some sociopolitical thing about girls and drinking and how its bad and why we do it and how she talked to all these other women--which she’d never mentioned before--who’d had similar experiences to hers. but she didn’t offer a solution to this problem. i didn’t want a treatise, i wanted a memoir. i didn’t want statistics, i wanted a personal recounting of teenage alcohol abuse. i didn’t want to hear about why drinking is especially bad for girls, blah.
anyway. she drank for the same reasons that i drank (mostly). it wasn’t peer pressure (until after we’d stopped drinking). it was because it made us feel good. it made us feel like we could approach boys and talk to them and have us like us, when we couldn’t do that sober. it made us forget the problems that we had. it allowed us to drop our inhibitions that were caused by low self esteem and low self worth. it let us open ourself up to experiences we might not have had otherwise.
i honestly have no idea when i had my first drink, though i can remember my first cigarette. i wasn’t a drunk, and i wasn’t an alcoholic. i was a binge drinker. i didn’t drink OFTEN, but when i drank, i drank a lot. even after i went to the hospital . it was my senior semester of college, i was having fun, wishing boys would love me. what can i say?
i stopped drinking, on my own, after i’d lived here for almost a year. i needed to get that shit under control. i didn’t drink anything--not a drop--for about a year.
now i can drink socially without going overboard and without binging. i don’t do it often though because mostly it just gives me headaches and liquor shits. and it’s expensive. sure, it’s ‘fun’ to go out and have a few drinks with friends, but for the most part, to me, it’s not worth it.
and i really don’t understand why drinking and going out for drinks is such a big part of our culture. as a mostly non-drinker i don’t shove it people’s faces, but it sucks that i can’t go to a bar and just order a water or a coke without getting THE LOOK from the bar tender and then getting a teeny tiny glass of water when i could get a fucking huge stein of beer. why can’t we just go out and socialize with out the fucking lubricant of booze? i just don’t get it.
oh, and don’t get me started on alcohol being legal and pot being illegal. stupidest fucking thing ever. i think alcohol should be more heavily regulated and more heavily taxed and that pot should be legalized and have the same regulation and taxes. that’s the only way the government will ever curb the ‘drug problem’.
/rant
(less)

like 1 like · see review

Dec 24, 2008 Rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs, drugs

What an interesting book. I'm not sure I buy it but it definitely made me think. This is a memoir of Zailckas' journey through alcohol abuse in her teens and early twenties. Her main argument is that society is telling young girls that excessive drinking is a normal life stage and a right of passage and she feels this is both untrue and damaging. She then details her very excessive drinking beginning in her teenage years (she had her stomach pumped at 16), through her college years in the Greek...more What an interesting book. I'm not sure I buy it but it definitely made me think. This is a memoir of Zailckas' journey through alcohol abuse in her teens and early twenties. Her main argument is that society is telling young girls that excessive drinking is a normal life stage and a right of passage and she feels this is both untrue and damaging. She then details her very excessive drinking beginning in her teenage years (she had her stomach pumped at 16), through her college years in the Greek system and into NYC as a young graduate. There is no doubt that this girl had a SERIOUS drinking problem. I was a partier in my younger days but I never came close to this kind of lifestyle.
This is where the quandary begins for me. I see what she's saying and I've noticed it too-young people who have serious drinking problems and their friends and family laugh it off as part of a normal college experience. But this is the thing: drinking a lot IS a normal life stage for a lot of people. It's just that a certain percentage of young people are really just alcoholics, not people going through a stage. It's not as black and white as she wants it to be, and there's no easy way to gauge who's going to emerge as the problem drinker post-college. I think time usually tells and since Zailckas wrote this at 23 she didn't wait long enough to find out. She feels she was emotionally stunted from alcohol abuse and thinks all her drunk friends were too. I have a feeling she didn't ask them and if she did she would find her situation is more unique than she thinks.
Zailckas does not define herself as an alcoholic which is interesting. On one hand I think she refuses the word because, again, she wants people to understand the enormous number of young people that drink excessively and not have it dismissed as a minority phenomenon.
There is something more to it too. I have noticed that among upper middle class Gen Xers and younger there is a real hesitation to claim the "A" word. I have watched several people in my life have alcohol negatively impact their lives and yet they'll twist everything around to avoid using the word alcoholic. They know that their drinking is a problem but they will say they have a "bad/complicated relationship with alcohol" or "I'm not physically addicted so I'm not an alcoholic" or they just need to "stop drinking, but not quit, that's different." It's a weird semantics game and I think it shows that the recovery movement is failing a certain sector of society. (less)

like · see review

May 16, 2013 Maria rated it 4 of 5 stars

The novel Smashed by Koren Zailckas is a novel of a girl who let alcohol and drinking define her adolescence and college years. Koren starts experimenting with drinking and alcohol around the age of fourteen on a vacation with her best friend, and doesn't stop until she's in her college years. The novel displays a variety of ways that binge drinking is capable of destroying a young person’s life. It shows the consequences of drinking and how it effects your life. This novel also shows and proves...more The novel Smashed by Koren Zailckas is a novel of a girl who let alcohol and drinking define her adolescence and college years. Koren starts experimenting with drinking and alcohol around the age of fourteen on a vacation with her best friend, and doesn't stop until she's in her college years. The novel displays a variety of ways that binge drinking is capable of destroying a young person’s life. It shows the consequences of drinking and how it effects your life. This novel also shows and proves that drinking isn't worth all of the consequences. You lose friends, your parents' respect, and most importantly, you lose yourself. Smashed is the true story of the overuse of alcohol, and the recovery that was for the best. “We will never really free ourselves of our inhibitions in dank bars. But I believe we can shed them in our projects. In our music, in our films, and on our canvases, we can be wildly immodest” (Zailckas, 333). Through these words, Zailckas is telling us that there are other ways to face our problems and get past them rather than drinking till we drop. It shows that we have the strength to do better than what we think we can.

I thought that the book was very well-written and showed what life would be like for an alcoholic teenage girl who continues her drinking habit throughout college. It took me a little while to get into the book, but once the story picked up, I couldn’t put the book down. It was very in-depth and showed the true life of an alcoholic. Although Zailckas felt that she needed the alcohol to function, she later realized that she didn’t need it. It makes the reader realize consequences that come along with the friends that we choose and the choices that we make.

I would definitely recommend this book to any teenager or adult who wants to experiment-or has experimented- in the world of drinking because of the author’s great display of the consequences of the world this world. It opens eyes to the things that alcohol does to our bodies that most of us are unaware of, and it shows that drinking and being drunk isn't all that it's cut out to be.
(less)

like · see review

Apr 25, 2013 Jasmine Miller rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

My rating of Koren Zailckas memoir, Smashed: The Story of a Drunken Girlhood would be a 4 out of 5 stars.

When she firsts discovers drinking she thinks it’s going to be her problem solver. Koren thinks that being drunk helps her emotional issues, helps her become happy. Throughout the story she explains how drinking affects her life and also how it affects her mentally, and sometimes physically.

The main strength of this text would have to be how everything is so clear and understanding. I think...more My rating of Koren Zailckas memoir, Smashed: The Story of a Drunken Girlhood would be a 4 out of 5 stars.

When she firsts discovers drinking she thinks it’s going to be her problem solver. Koren thinks that being drunk helps her emotional issues, helps her become happy. Throughout the story she explains how drinking affects her life and also how it affects her mentally, and sometimes physically.

The main strength of this text would have to be how everything is so clear and understanding. I think sometimes in stories the author gets kind of sidetracked in a way. She really focused on telling the story that she wanted to tell. It was constantly about her drinking and how it affected her, she never went off topic. She also got really into detail with everything. Some people write really plainly, like, “The sky is blue.” If Koren would have written that sentence it would say, “The sky was a bright, beautiful blue color.” That’s how I imagine it. The writing in this story was just overall really good and her very in depth descriptions of everything made the story a whole lot more interesting.

The only weakness I saw was the language. There was some cussing, if you’re someone who doesn’t mind a few cuss words here and there then that shouldn’t be a huge problem. The only I adult content I can recall is her being in bed with someone, it never went into detail. It just explains that’s where she wakes up. Then also there is obvious alcohol use in this story.

I would recommend this to someone who enjoys learning about the different ways people live. Not everyone is an alcoholic like Koren was, but there are plenty of people who would enjoy reading about it. Learning the different ways and lifestyles of people is really interesting to me. I feel like I can see things from their perspective and it tends to make me feel a little better. I see people who get bullied or have hard lives and I don’t want them to think that just because some people don’t go through the same things that they don’t care or understand. Reading the story I learned how some alcoholics see life. It’s not just because they like to party and get drunk. It’s because of emotional reasons, and this story made that a little easier to understand. I recommend this to anyone who likes to see things through someone else’s eyes and is willing to learn.

(less)

like · see review

title link	preview: Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
avg rating	preview: Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood Goodreads rating: 3.43 (12735 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/80570.Smashed?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309282257l/80570.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/80570.Smashed?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood by Koren Zailckas[/url]

Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (17)

Genres

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Books by Koren Zailckas

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About Smashed: Story of...

Quotes from Smashed: Story of a Dr...