Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood

[LauGh A Lot]

I was wondering if anyone else read this book. The author, Koren Zailckas has a whole chapter dedicated to greek life and the rest of the book is about her and alcohol and how her sorority made her abuse worse. she is more anti-greek than the author of Pledged. Zailckas was in a sorority and dropped out of it her Senior year so she wrote about tons of secrets. She also writes very badly of fraternities.. here's a quote:

"I've decided that fraternities and the boys in them are hazards. At universities, they are the last booby trap that women have left to dismantle. They are the self-flooding springkler system that would drive us violently away. I think fraternities should be dismantled. When you crack open the fraternal system and see it clearly, you realize how outrageous it is, in this day and age, that organizations still exist to protect the interests of white males-- namely, drinking and sex.
No structure needs to further these boys' advancement. They have gone as far as the game goes. They have collected all the Monopoly money, and earned the title of all-time champions. Any funds fraternities raise for charitable organizations, all the Habitat for Humanity houses they can build, will not compensate for their utter destructiveness. They take far more than they give. They've had their cake, and eaten ours, too."

That's just one example of how bitter she is towards greek life. I am curious if anyone else has read this book and your thoughts toward it.

[PM_Mama00]

Hmmm sounds liek someone got dumped by a fratty.

[sugar and spice]

Originally posted by PM_Mama00
Hmmm sounds liek someone got dumped by a fratty.

Okay, can we quit it with comments like these? They just make US look stupid and petty, not the other way around, and they're not funny either.


One of my creative writing teachers was reading this book, and she let me skim the chapter on pledging. She uses a fake name for the sorority, although I'm sure that someone with a working knowledge of the Syracuse (?) Greek system could figure out which sorority it was. I don't want to pass judgement because I don't know any Syracuse Greeks personally, but some of the rumors I've heard about the system there make it not entirely surprising that a book like this would take place there.

Anyway, I'm not going to comment further because I haven't read the whole book, but there is something that irks me about blaming all frat boys for the evils of the entire world. Way way way too much of a generalization.

[PM_Mama00]

Originally posted by sugar and spice
Anyway, I'm not going to comment further because I haven't read the whole book, but there is something that irks me about blaming all frat boys for the evils of the entire world. Way way way too much of a generalization.

That's why I made my comment.

[AchtungBaby80]

I heard about this and I sort of want to read it...although I don't know why.

[Tom Earp]

Doesnt a generalization seem to be the Mode of the day? Greek Bashing is printable.

So, does one campus and one or two Greek Organizations mean that All are the same?

So these Authors feel that their little bit of Greek association is the true and total story? Maybe jaundiced is a better word.

[lifesaver]

Originally posted by LauGh A Lot
"... to protect the interests of white males-- namely, drinking and sex."

I know lots of Mexicans, Blacks, and Asians who enjoy drinking and sex. Its not an exclusively white thing. Someone should tell her so she knows.

[Coramoor]

Originally posted by lifesaver
I know lots of Mexicans, Blacks, and Asians who enjoy drinking and sex. Its not an exclusively white thing. Someone should tell her so she knows.

Lol. Nope, it's whitey's fault.

[astroAPhi]

Originally posted by PM_Mama00
Hmmm sounds liek someone got dumped by a fratty.

Sounds more like someone is trying to take a slice from Alexandra Robbins' book. Come on, "Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood"? Come up with your own creative way of telling your sob story. COLLEGE is probably what made her drinking worse, not the sorority. I know plenty of non-Greeks that could drink every single fraternity guy I've ever met under the table.

[Peaches-n-Cream]

I saw the author on a talk show. She said that her problems with alcohol preceded her college experience, but when she went away to college her drinking escalated.

I haven't read the book, but the author said she wrote it as a cautionary tale.

[HotDamnImAPhiMu]

Originally posted by sugar and spice
Anyway, I'm not going to comment further because I haven't read the whole book, but there is something that irks me about blaming all frat boys for the evils of the entire world. Way way way too much of a generalization.

I think if I was her I might have started with a good look at her own ALCOHOL ABUSE as the possible root of her problems.

Damn frat boys and their inability to stop her from self-destruction. Damn them straight to hell!

[Optimist Prime]

Originally posted by LauGh A Lot
I was wondering if anyone else read this book. The author, Koren Zailckas has a whole chapter dedicated to greek life and the rest of the book is about her and alcohol and how her sorority made her abuse worse. she is more anti-greek than the author of Pledged. Zailckas was in a sorority and dropped out of it her Senior year so she wrote about tons of secrets. She also writes very badly of fraternities.. here's a quote:

"I've decided that fraternities and the boys in them are hazards. At universities, they are the last booby trap that women have left to dismantle. They are the self-flooding springkler system that would drive us violently away. I think fraternities should be dismantled. When you crack open the fraternal system and see it clearly, you realize how outrageous it is, in this day and age, that organizations still exist to protect the interests of white males-- namely, drinking and sex.
No structure needs to further these boys' advancement. They have gone as far as the game goes. They have collected all the Monopoly money, and earned the title of all-time champions. Any funds fraternities raise for charitable organizations, all the Habitat for Humanity houses they can build, will not compensate for their utter destructiveness. They take far more than they give. They've had their cake, and eaten ours, too."

That's just one example of how bitter she is towards greek life. I am curious if anyone else has read this book and your thoughts toward it.

Sounds like more than her cake needs to be eaten

[AchtungBaby80]

Originally posted by SHEETCAKE
People often smash me at weddings.

Yay! Sheetcake's back!

[sugar and spice]

So I finally finished this book. I'm glad she wrote it, because I think it's a topic that desperately needs addressing and isn't taken seriously enough. There are too many women who are going through exactly what she went through.

I also am pretty sure that I've figured out her sorority, but that is neither here nor there.

That said, I don't think her issues lie solely with fraternity men. It's clear that she has major, major issues with men in general. I think some of this may be linked to a statement she makes early on in the book -- those who live their lives through alcohol find themselves emotionally stunted at the age they start drinking. Hopefully she is going through a growth process since she's stopped. If you look at her interactions with men through the whole book, however, you realize there is not a single one that is described in positive terms until Matt. She questions the motives -- or makes assumptions about the motives of every male figure in her life from the boys at the birthday party when she is in eighth grade through the boys in New York who buy her drinks. I'm not sure if she's aware of these issues or not, but it was bordering on ridiculous -- I hope she's got a damn good therapist she's discussing that with ;-) . . . because her issues with men seemed really unhealthy.

I also think she should have waited a few years before writing this book. First of all, I honestly think that she will relapse into problems with alcohol again. I don't really believe she's done. Furthermore, her understanding of the issues at play seem very shallow. She's often attacking the symptoms rather than the problem. For example, her take on sorority life. I don't understand why she is so bitter about it -- at first she seems to have a decent time (singing at her freshman formal, for example), but she seems to start hating it without explaining to her readers WHY she hates it other than saying that it contributed to her drinking problems. I don't believe that for a second -- the girl's been drinking since she was 14, and it's clear that she's drinking almost nightly before she moves into the sorority house, but then she blames moving into the sorority house for an increase in drinking problems even though her problems with alcohol don't seem any greater than they had been prior to the move-in. What? Her issues with the alcohol industry seem similar -- she's not attacking the root of the cause. She claims the alcohol industry plays off of sexist stereotypes -- okay, I buy that, but the root of the cause is not alcohol, it's the gender roles and stereotypes that are held in this country. For example, she is bothered by the founder of Girls Gone Wild saying something that basically seems to promote date rape, which is understandable. But the biggest problem is not that the guy uses liquor to push girls into doing they would not do when sober. It's the way that girls are pushed to be "good girls" at the same time as they're being pushed to be sexy, and the inner conflict is what drives these girls to seek out alcohol and use it to lose their inhibitions. I would have liked to see more examination of what drives girls to drink so much, psychologically, rather than just blaming it on the alcohol industry or "peer pressure" or whatever excuses she came up with. She touched on it in the beginning and a little in the closing -- I think her own issues with anxiety were a huge driving factor that she never explored in enough depth -- but not nearly as much as I would have liked.

I don't know -- on the whole, I think it's a worthwhile topic to bring to the table, but I think it would be less trite and have more insightful arguments if she had written it five or ten years from now and had more experience analyzing girls' relationships to alcohol in America.

[Rudey]

If you love drunk girls that think writing silly books is a great ambition, raise your hand!

-Rudey