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3.68 AVERAGE
3.68 AVERAGE
Very funny, thoughtful, and delicate writing. This book resonated with me for so many reasons. I would truly recommend this book to anyone in their 20’s or 30’s thinking about sobriety or even just looking for comfort when reflecting on the difficulties of the beginning of adulthood.
emotional
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Drinking Games by Sarah Levy is a debut memoir and social critique about the role alcohol has in our lives. I listened to the audiobook, which clocks in at a little under seven hours and is narrated by the author.
Through hard internal work and a good support system, Sarah Levy started her sobriety at age twenty-eight in New York City. From the blurb: "It’s an examination of what our short-term choices about alcohol do to our long-term selves and how they challenge our ability to be vulnerable enough to discover what we really want in life."
In the author's note at the beginning of this book, Levy notes that this book is a collection of essays. This makes sense, since the author got her start in published writing via magazines. I think maybe the publisher should have marketed this more as a collection of essays than a memoir, since most memoirs I read tend to be pretty linear. I don't tend to mind non-linear timelines in memoirs/essay collections, but I did get a little confused about what part of her life she was talking about at times.
Levy's prose is quite good, very approachable and insightful. As a fellow female Millennial, I felt very seen in a lot of these stories. I teared up several times during this book; all of the stories have some weight to them. I read the whole thing in one sitting while I was packing my apartment for a move.
CW: binge drinking, blackouts, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, body image issues
I received a copy of this book to review. All opinions contained herein are my own. Drinking Games releases on January 3, 2023.
If you want to see more from me, check out my blog and my bookstagram!
Through hard internal work and a good support system, Sarah Levy started her sobriety at age twenty-eight in New York City. From the blurb: "It’s an examination of what our short-term choices about alcohol do to our long-term selves and how they challenge our ability to be vulnerable enough to discover what we really want in life."
In the author's note at the beginning of this book, Levy notes that this book is a collection of essays. This makes sense, since the author got her start in published writing via magazines. I think maybe the publisher should have marketed this more as a collection of essays than a memoir, since most memoirs I read tend to be pretty linear. I don't tend to mind non-linear timelines in memoirs/essay collections, but I did get a little confused about what part of her life she was talking about at times.
Levy's prose is quite good, very approachable and insightful. As a fellow female Millennial, I felt very seen in a lot of these stories. I teared up several times during this book; all of the stories have some weight to them. I read the whole thing in one sitting while I was packing my apartment for a move.
CW: binge drinking, blackouts, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, body image issues
I received a copy of this book to review. All opinions contained herein are my own. Drinking Games releases on January 3, 2023.
If you want to see more from me, check out my blog and my bookstagram!
Feel very mixed about this book. While it gives plenty of insight into what alcoholism and sobriety can look like for a young woman, I don’t think she did enough to acknowledge the incredible amount of privilege she had, the issues around (not) consenting to sex while blackout drunk, nor any science or real research around recovery. For people struggling with moderation while drinking or who know someone who is, this could offer some helpful insight (she is in a healthy and happy place when she concludes the book) but I believe she is still early in her recovery/healing journey.
Some of my favorite quotes:
“But the truth was, I was powerless over alcohol. When I drank, I lost control. In the presence of alcohol, I put myself in dangerous situations, woke up next to strangers, and lost huge chunks of my memory…A few months into sobriety, it hit me: the insanity of my drinking was my inability to accept that it wasn’t serving me. Once I fully accepted that I simply couldn’t drink safely, I felt an incredible amount of relief. I didn’t have to work harder to be “better” at drinking. I just could not drink.”
“It took me years to understand that the outsides didn't matter; the shame, anxiety, frustration, and loneliness I felt after I drank qualified me for sobriety. And in time, I learned that rock bottom, like anything else, looks different for different people.”
“I hope that social stigma around alcohol use disorder, treatment modalities, and sobriety shifts one day. But until then, I'm trying to keep it simple. I think about my recovery meetings in the same way I think about yoga classes: they are a practice and part of my routine that allow me to show up as a present participant in my life. Along the way, they taught me to ask for help, introduced me to women who built big lives without a drink, and offered me a place to go when I felt lost. Most of all, they gave me what I searched for in every cocktail: the deepest, purest, and most genuine belief that everything was going to be okay. For that, and so much more, I'm grateful.”
Some of my favorite quotes:
“But the truth was, I was powerless over alcohol. When I drank, I lost control. In the presence of alcohol, I put myself in dangerous situations, woke up next to strangers, and lost huge chunks of my memory…A few months into sobriety, it hit me: the insanity of my drinking was my inability to accept that it wasn’t serving me. Once I fully accepted that I simply couldn’t drink safely, I felt an incredible amount of relief. I didn’t have to work harder to be “better” at drinking. I just could not drink.”
“It took me years to understand that the outsides didn't matter; the shame, anxiety, frustration, and loneliness I felt after I drank qualified me for sobriety. And in time, I learned that rock bottom, like anything else, looks different for different people.”
“I hope that social stigma around alcohol use disorder, treatment modalities, and sobriety shifts one day. But until then, I'm trying to keep it simple. I think about my recovery meetings in the same way I think about yoga classes: they are a practice and part of my routine that allow me to show up as a present participant in my life. Along the way, they taught me to ask for help, introduced me to women who built big lives without a drink, and offered me a place to go when I felt lost. Most of all, they gave me what I searched for in every cocktail: the deepest, purest, and most genuine belief that everything was going to be okay. For that, and so much more, I'm grateful.”
Drinking Games is an honest and raw account of Sarah Levy's history with alcoholism, detailing how she lived as a party girl and then her journey to sobriety.
I respect so much that Sarah didn't hold back with this memoir. Laying out your faults and struggles that way is no easy feat, and this book was unflinchingly honest. I connected to her writing voice consistently throughout the book.
I did get confused at times as the timeline is not chronological and was hard to piece together at times, but otherwise I felt this was a rare memoir that gave me everything I wanted from the story and more.
Thanks so much to St. Martin's Press as well as NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
I respect so much that Sarah didn't hold back with this memoir. Laying out your faults and struggles that way is no easy feat, and this book was unflinchingly honest. I connected to her writing voice consistently throughout the book.
I did get confused at times as the timeline is not chronological and was hard to piece together at times, but otherwise I felt this was a rare memoir that gave me everything I wanted from the story and more.
Thanks so much to St. Martin's Press as well as NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
fast-paced
I really hated the construction of this memoir. We kept circling back to before she was sober maybe based on different themes. The whole first part I was wondering where in the world is her family?? Then finally you find out she’s so close with her mom. So why wait so long to introduce her?
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
This book is the epitome of why society is influencing young people to be something they are not. I really enjoyed this listen, because the narrator was the author and I really felt for her. She definitely has/had a drinking problem and I applaud her for seeing this and getting the help she needed. There are so many people who think that the next big thing is going to fix their life and I fear that now it is even worse than it was when she was going through it. We have to live up to these unattainable standards set by social media that we spiral when we are not good enough, pretty enough, thin enough. Thank you Sarah Levy for giving us your story, in order to make us all feel better about ourselves and how we are feeling.
Thank you to the author, Netgalley and Macmillan for an early audio copy.
Thank you to the author, Netgalley and Macmillan for an early audio copy.