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So I read the book (everything so far except the conclusion) and here's what I've got to say: it's not that bad.
Really. Then again, I was also saying that the first season of "Sorority Life" was not that bad and most of y'all disagreed with me, but honestly, I don't think the picture she painted was as horrible as I thought it was going to be. A few topics I thought she handled particularly well, at least from my perspective, were how minorities, especially blacks, are treated in primarily white chapters, the sorority drama and politics (come on, the chapter on deciding who to serenade with should ring true for anybody who comes from a chapter of 40+ and probably many from smaller chapters too!), and the issue in Alpha Rho where strict anti-hazing rules meant confusion and a lack of conhesion in the sorority.
That said, she definitely has an anti-Greek bias whether she cares to admit it or not. I'm not sure if this is because she doesn't realize it or if she just doesn't want to own up to it, but I'm not sure how someone can call herself "unbiased" when she quotes liberally from "Rush: a handbook for sorority rushees," a book which is 20 years old, takes the quotes out of context (most of the things she quoted from that book are meant tongue-in-cheek) and deletes the positive parts so that only those that promote anti-sorority stereotypes remain. I think it's also clear that she simply does not understand Greek life, much like many of those who have never been Greek. She either confuses the NPHC and the NPC in some of her quotes or examples or leads the reader to believe they are one and the same (a particular example I can remember is a quote from an NPHC leader stating that hazing in sororities is on the rise, which I think was intended to apply to NPHC sororities but Robbins uses it to refer to NPC sororities instead). Especially in the ritual chapter, you can tell she's a fish out of water -- she reports several open mottoes as closed ones, a handful of ritual secrets that I know for a fact are wrong, and uses That Bad Website That Shall Not Be Named as a legitimate source. She focuses much more on the negatives than the positives, but that's a given.
Also, journalistically the piece is ridiculously shoddy. A review on one of the book-selling websites said it read more like a Sweet Valley High novel than a work of any seriousness, and I think that's definitely true. The format lends itself to sensationalism -- the "Here's what happened at State U./Now let's connect that to the broader scheme in sorority life" was just too much of a jump for me. Oh, Amy takes diet pills -- that must mean that sorority girls have eating disorders like mad and are all having puking contests and therefore sororities are the root of all evil because they promote bad body image. Also, she's a pretty poor sociologist -- there is way too much inferring causation from correlation. For example, she wonders why the sorority caused Amy's self-esteem to drop so much that she slept with the guy that date-raped her -- I'm not sure I buy that something like that wouldn't have happened without a sorority. By the time you join a sorority your self-esteem is already about 18 years in the making, and Amy's didn't seem like it was that high to begin with. And the whole not-revealing-sources thing seems pretty sketchy -- I wouldn't be surprised if the story was elaborated or a composite of more women.
All that said, I thought the book was pretty good. It was a quick read, the main characters rang true (I definitely related to Caitlin and Vicki at points throughout the book, and Amy to a lesser extent), and I felt like she did an ok job of covering what sorority life is all about -- some issues she tackled better than others, but as a whole I didn't think it was nearly as bad as it could have been. Many of the points she brought up criticizing Greek life were ones I have seen echoed by me, Kath, 33girl and many others here on GC. But as a whole, I don't think that this book was that far off from what many girls experience in their sororities -- I know it's not THAT far away from mine.
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