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Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
Customer Reviews
Rating:  - Love this book!
This is one of my favorite books. I have read it twice already. I received this shipment very promptly. I love it!
Rating: - We've all been there...I hope.
I definitely had my party years and some of Koren's life experiences seem to match my own. She doesn't hold back anything and her honesty about the Greek system is accurate. I feel a little less guilty now that I know someone else had the same thoughts running through their head that I did during these less than virtuous moments. I enjoyed this book, but there is a constant sadness in her writing that makes you want to hug yourself and say, "It will be better tomorrow." If you like reading about Greek Life,then you should also read COLLEGE LIFE EXTREME: Lies, Sex, Drugs and Violenceand Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities. Thanks Koren for sharing so much about your life with us! Your book will always have a special place on my bookshelf.
Rating:  - Not what I thought it would be...
This book isn't about alcohol abuse, really. It's about a girl from a priviledged family who grows up with lots of friends, becomes a college cheerleader/sorority sister, interns in New York, makes and maintains friendships along the way, and should be an all-around productive, happy citizen. But this girl, from an early age, wants to be a writer. She is especially awestruck by tortured female writers, like Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf. I think she assumed that to be a great writer/poet, suffering is essential. Her driving force isn't alchohol, it's the pretense of alcohol abuse because it makes her appear to be tortured. She thinks misery drives creativity. Many great writers/artists are and were indeed lost souls, many with mental health problems. But the author's problems are all self-inflicted. "Look at how much I drink...I'm so tortured! Feel sorry for me!"
The more I read this book, the more I got the feeling that she had created a character in her own mind and was living it out. Maybe she should have gone into dramatic performance instead of writing. I wonder if the feminists she so hopelessly wants to impress with her smug treatment of men, are indeed impressed by her? She is certainly impressed enough with herself, blaming her actions on everyone around her.
I got the impression that once she felt that she had suffered enough, she had a book to write. If you continually choose to place yourself in stupid situations, that just makes you stupid, not deep. If you continually remain emotionally and physically detached from "boys," and play mind games with them, guess what, they're not going to stick around. It doesn't make you smarter than them, just more pathetic. This story is like a whiny love letter the author wrote to herself--"See, you are so tortured and filled with angst, you have suffered so greatly, you are a writer!" Making stupid choices and employing the overuse of simile and metaphor doesn't create a great writer...just an annoying story that is written in an annoying manner.
Rating:  - shockingly hit home
When I first picked up the book I thought it was fiction. I got into bed and at first was disappointed to find out it was not. However I decided to give it a chance. I was hooked right away. My breath was stolen while I connected to the writer. At my age now I look at my adolescence and young adulthood as if it was someone else but while reading that book it brought back so much emotion. I encouraged my friends and sister to read it because I felt we all could relate and everyone has loved this book. The stories may be shocking, sad, and/or appalling but it happens. It is very real.
Rating: - Self-absorbed and not well written
I read this in conjunction with 'Blackout Girl'. Both books suffer from the same disease...that the authors think the facts of their life story are interesting in and of themselves. But they are not. Tales of dysfunctional parents and wild debauchery may make for a good hour on the Jerry Springer Show, they do not necessarily make interesting reading.
The other issue is that most of the writing is cliched and trite to the point of exhaustion. It did get to the point where I could not finish this book....it no longer seemed worth the investment of time.
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