Someone always has to ruin it :p

Leave it to Tracy, the nose-whore ;) to find a pic showing this difference

ROFL!!! Guilty as charged, Dani! :D

I just saw that fantastic picture on the book jacket and I thought to myself, "Hmmm, if she really looked that good she wouldn't have been so intimidated by all the beautiful sorority women when she started her research." And darn if I wasn't right!

She reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry's dating a woman who looks "beautiful" only in some lighted areas (that one back booth at Monk's). Everywhere else she looked hideous and he couldn't stand being out with her and looking at her.

I'm #11 on the hold list as of last week, so hopefully I'll be doing the same thing soon. I think the threads will end up being much more interesting than the book could ever be, but I still want to read it for some reason.

Didn't you guys see her on the Today show? She had a creepy lazy eye thing going on then -- I was like WTF mates?

It's actually at my school library, which is where I read it.

It's not entirely facetious -- the author was a former Texas ZTA rush chair and she does offer a lot of good advice for rushees and pledges. But it's all interspersed with what are obvious jokes playing off the stereotypes of sorority girls, stuff like:

What a sorority girl does during summer break: Takes trips to Europe. Summers on Cape Cod. Works as an au pair. Works on her tan.

What a sorority girl doesn't do during summer break: Works at McDonald's.

etc.

Most (maybe all? I can't remember) of the quotes Robbins chose were from the tongue-in-cheek sidebars, out of context.

It sounds like it would be hilarious to read though! Do you know if it's still in print or if I can only find it at a library/used bookstore?

http://shopworld.us/shop/detpage.asp?asin=0394741323

s and s, it somewhat frightens me that this book is in your school library. ;)

When I checked this morning I was #16 on the waiting list at my library. I guess I'll just have to wait though because there is no way this woman is getting my $.
If someone who has read it has a free moment could you please PM me and tell me if there is anything about my org's ritual in the book?

IIRC, "she who must not be named" (Kristin Voldemort? :) ) and her former sorority were mentioned and she may have included some of the stuff from the infamous website. (This has actually been taken down recently - was she forced to, or did they just get tired of it?) This individual does not come across as the most credible source. I think that if the book was striving for serious journalism, this would be a problem.

I skimmed it in B&N this eve (mainly out of curiousity but I have no desire to see the author earn $$ for this piece of fiction) I will admit I did not read it word for word but it seems to be more on the genre of a romance novel than a serious academic book. Then again they had "Sex and the City" filed in the same section so maybe this store has a strange sense of humor.

The "secrets" that she reports are mostly 'closed' mottos, or grips. I was looking specifically since a previous poster had stated that some Pi Phi secrets were revealed... but it was not as bad as I'd imagined (i.e, inaccurate). The chapter that discusses 'secrets' clearly shows her bias that she has no respect for ritual or secrecy but since someone obviously told her the snippets she's included (yes, she could have gotten the Chi O material from that website but that doesn't explain where she got the other things), they most likely didn't respect it either.

I read it and I'm not even Greek (yet!). I think, like many girls, robbins is a bit insane and goes through crazy and non-crazy phases. This comes out in the book where she'll tell the stories fairly unbiased and then write about both the good and bad things...and then suddenly she'll go off on a tangent about the whole university-supported cliques and the like. She does bring up good points though--when she talks about the old Little Sisters groups--we actually quoted a bit of that and inserted it into our bylaws regarding what not to do with the sweethearts. And yes--more community service and less competition would probably be good.
I have seen more drinking and drug use in residence halls than in anything mentioned in this book. She doesn't even really bring up cocaine use and I know of a few houses at other universities known as the "coke sorority." She also doesn't seem to like Chi Omega much--but a lot does seem to be taken from the now-defunct Chi Omega Secrets website (which still has a few pages and it's original directory up--maybe someone hacked it?). Most girls laugh at the 'secrets' she wrote about.

Everyone please do me a favor and edit your post to not mention my org or what is said about it. I asked for PMs and now I'm starting to regret even doing that. I know anyone can read the book and find out what she says, but I'd rather it not be discussed here. Thanks for the info but I'll just read it myself.

my wait ended yesterday when i picked it up at the library. i'm in the middle of another book at the moment and once i finish it i'll finally be able to enjoy it as well.

The view from here
 

As a professor at a "large west coast PAC-10 university," I didn't find the book a total waste of money.

It answered some questions I had, and left some more unanswered.

I've read worse.

The credibility problems have been covered by more than enough previous posters. (You've got some good writers on this board.)

My least favorite parts are where Robbins plugs in jaw-droppingly bad cliches & descriptions -- "Amy purred with her velvety southern charm" ... "she flounced on her ruffled, pink-canopy bed, tossed aside her stuffed swan " ... and something about "her freckles in the light."

My goodness.

Anyway.
Have a good summer.
Stay out of trouble.

D.

I picked it up at the library this morning and am about 100 pages in so far. I can't figure out if the author intended this to be a sociological study, an op/ed piece, or a semi-fictional piece. I also love the credit to www.greekchat.com, although I don't know how any serious writer could actually use a public internet message board as a citation :D At least she gave credit where credit was due, yeah, that sounds good!

I wonder though, if there's a second printing will she have to do major revisions after the recent court decision concerning one of her "references"?

Hee hee hee hee :D

Is there a post about this?

Ok, thanks.

Robbin's Pledged site has been strangely quiet. At first, she was promising updates in April, and then in May. Now it's June and there's still nothing.

Betcha she's hard at work cooking up her next sordid expose... gotta live up to the terms of that big fat book contract! :)

I want to see her take on Opus Dei next.

I got a call from the library today that my copy is waiting for me. Guess that's what I'll be doing this weekend.

Hate to beak this to you all - but Paramount bought rights to Pledged; I'm afraid that piece of (*&% is going to be a movie. Maybe we can stop it??
Also, I know through a friend of a friend that Robbins has a few things to hide of her own. Lets just put it this way, there is a list of people who refuse to work with her, and she doesn't have many friends - not that she's concerned with anything but her own success.

Honestly, we can't really stop private companies from doing things like this. BUT, perhaps we should all start really focusing on Greek Unity and working in the community to show that we aren't all big bad bullies. The Greek System has survived many attacks like this and will continue to survive!!!

We, on Greek Chat, already have an affinity for each other and we have established that all Greeks are Greek together, right? Let's take that mentality out to other chapters and houses to show them that we HAVE to stick together and stick up for our Greekness!

Ms. Robbins was a guest on KROQ (a L.A. radio station) today, talking about Skull & Bones, and how both presidental candidates are members.

She of course had to throw in that she is a memeber of Scroll & Key. And how some member of Skull & Bones is trying to ruin her career as a journalist. (Man, what about the members of GLO's that are also??? Give us some credit, too! :D)

Then one of the DJ's mentioned "Pledged." All the DJ's could talk about was how sexual the girls are in the book...

:rolleyes: Whatever!

I think she destroyed her journalistic credibility all by herself.

But I thought that she "bonded" with Caitlin, Vicki, Amy and Sabrina - why doesn't she call them up and they can paint each other's toenails?

As to the rest of your post, I'm curious. Do tell.

Ugh.
 

What a spiteful poison-pen 'letter' your post was. :( On your first point, you can stop it with an immense amount of money (most likely millions) by buying the rights from Paramount and then doing nothing with them. :rolleyes: with exceptions, "protesting" over a film delights distributors and makes a film 'controversial'. Improves box office takings.

As for your second point and your apparent goal of a smear campaign... Leaving aside the long hours and demanding schedules of investigative journalism (NO I'm not saying Pledged was that one way or other, just that she has worked in that anti-social field), leaving aside of all that... I just want to let you know what you came out with was a nasty thing to say.

Just a word to the wise
 

I wanna just say "don't encourage her nasty gossip" but there is a slightly more important thing at stake.

POTENTIALLY, public posting of comments which could harm someone (regardless of media forum) where it can later be proved there was intention to harm amongst other things could cause problems for John.
It's a lengthy 1st amendment issue; no actors for congress are involved so we aren't talking protected speech. I shan't and probably cannot (!) go into it in much detail - I just wanted to pay lip service to it.

I.e. if she/her publisher's counsel submitted a takedown notice (or action for damages) on the basis of published comments to the ISP of Greekchat it'd cause problems for him, too.

I'm not saying what will/won't happen/coulda/woulda/shoulda. :) But that sort of thing can and HAS happened in relation to Internet forums before and I just wish to highlight the danger here.

Thanks.

A movie about Pledged - oh for the love of God. Since movies do not even usually stick very close to the books I can only hope that in making the movie they will exaggerate everything even more. :rolleyes:

I didn't say do post, I said do tell. She can send me a PM if she wants.

We've been through all that crap here, I doubt anything this person would say would shut GC down.

The movie (if it gets made) will probably just use the title and possibly character names...most likely it'll bear no relation to the book and quite truthfully, I don't know any young female stars who would want to appear in such a project. They're not going to sink tons of $$$ into a movie w/ no bankable stars that has very little international marketing possibility. In other words, straight to video here we come.

"I didn't say do post, I said do tell. She can send me a PM if she wants."

Lol. :D

"In other words, straight to video here we come."

Even so, you know you'll watch it though. :p

It's possible it might not even get made into a movie.
The might have bought the rights "just in case"
Paramount probably didn't spend all the much in buying the rights either.

Edited because I have typing issues

On rights costing lots
 

"Paramount probably didn't spend all the much in being the rights either."

Probably right. It's the first time one of her books got made into a film after all (I don't think Skulls was based on a book of hers). So I agree with you.

That said, a comparitive 'not a lot' for a large film company is still gonna be a fair amount of $$.

Re: On rights costing lots
 

Of course. It's all relative.

http://movies.themovieinsider.com/?mid=427

LMAO at the cast list. There are 6 males and one female. Is this going to be "Sorority Boys II"?

Hahahaha. I can see that this movie is going to be a winner