Synopses & Reviews
From earliest experimentation to habitual excess to full-blown abuse, twenty-four-year-old Koren Zailckas leads us through her experience of a terrifying trend among young girls, exploring how binge drinking becomes routine, how it becomes "the usual." With the stylistic freshness of a poet and the dramatic gifts of a novelist, Zailckas describes her first sip at fourteen, alcohol poisoning at sixteen, a blacked-out sexual experience at nineteen, total disorientation after waking up in an unfamiliar New York City apartment at twenty-two, when she realized she had to stop, and all the depression, rage, troubled friendships, and sputtering romantic connections in between. Zailckass unflinching candor and exquisite analytical eye gets to the meaning beneath the seeming banality of girls getting drunk. She persuades us that her story is the story of thousands of girls like her who are not alcoholics yet but who use booze as a short cut to courage, a stand-in for good judgment, and a bludgeon for shyness, each of them failing to see how their emotional distress, unarticulated hostility, and depression are entangled with their socially condoned binging.
Like the contemporary masterpieces The Liars Club, Autobiography of a Face, and Jarhead, Smashed is destined to become a classic. A crucial book for any woman who has succumbed to oblivion through booze, or for anyone ready to face the more subtle repercussions of their own chronic over-drinking or of someone they love, Smashed is an eye-opening, wise, and utterly gripping achievement.
Review
"Zailckas has captured what's unfortunately become a quintessential American girlhood." Mary Karr, author of The Liars' Club and Cherry
Review
"An astonishing revealing debut...riveting, with a powerful message for parents of teenaged girls." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Like Caroline Knapp's Drinking: A Love Story, this raw, eye-opening memoir will deepen readers' understanding of American culture and perhaps their own lives." Gillian Engberg, Booklist
Review
"[A] mortifyingly credible story of smart young women doing stuporous things." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Review
"Moving from smashed to whole takes more than narrative talent....Although Koren has described many of the pieces with precision, she has a very short perspective and very slight insight. And all the pieces may not be there anymore." Boston Globe
Review
"Smashed is a valuable piece of work....A small, drunken girl didn't waste the pain of her youth; rather she became an adult who transformed the material into something poetic and powerful." Charlotte Observor
Review
"For parents, the book may well be shocking. For young people, it will be a revelatory, unflinching look at self-destruction." Dallas Morning News
Review
"She has an ear for wistful, unexpected prose, a skill with rhythm and language." Los Angeles Times
Review
"[A] powerful memoir." Library Journal
Synopsis
Garnering a vast amount of attention from young people and parents, and from book buyers across the country, Smashed became a media sensation and a New York Times bestseller. Eye-opening and utterly gripping, Koren Zailckas’s story is that of thousands of girls like her who are not alcoholics—yet—but who routinely use booze as a shortcut to courage and a stand-in for good judgment.
With one stiff sip of Southern Comfort at the age of fourteen, Zailckas is initiated into the world of drinking. From then on, she will drink faithfully, fanatically. In high school, her experimentation will lead to a stomach pumping. In college, her excess will give way to a pattern of self-poisoning that will grow more destructive each year. At age twenty-two, Zailckas will wake up in an unfamiliar apartment in New York City, elbow her friend who is passed out next to her, and ask, "Where are we?" Smashed is a sober look at how she got there and, after years of blackouts and smashups, what it took for her to realize she had to stop drinking. Smashed is an astonishing literary debut destined to become a classic.
Synopsis
Kimberley Rae Miller writes powerfully about her fatherand#8217;s compulsive hoarding and the dysfunctional household she grew up in, including the idyllic Long Island home that no one would have guessed was a rat-infestedand#160;wasteland of garbage, lacking heat or running water.
Synopsis
Kim Miller is an immaculately put-together woman with a great career, a loving boyfriend, and a tidy apartment on Manhattanand#8217;s Upper West Side. You would never guess that Kim grew up behind the closed doors of her familyand#8217;s idyllic Long Island house, navigating between teetering stacks of aging newspapers, broken computers, and boxes upon boxes of unused junk festering in every roomand#8212;the product of her fatherand#8217;s painful and unending struggle with hoarding.
and#160;
In this moving coming-of-age story, Kim brings to life her rat-infested home, her childhood consumed by concealing her fatherand#8217;s shameful secret from friends, and the emotional burden that ultimately led to an attempt to take her own life. And in beautiful prose, Miller sheds light on her complicated yet loving relationship with her parents that has thrived in spite of the odds.
and#160;
Coming Clean is a story about recognizing where we come from and the relationships that define usand#8212;and about finding peace in the homes we make for ourselves.
About the Author
Koren Zailckas grew up in the suburbs of Boston. She studied under Mary Karr at Syracuse University, which was featured in a Time cover article about young women and drinking. This is her first book.
Table of Contents
Preface
Initiation
First Taste
First Waste
First Offense
Coma Girl
The Usual
All You Can Drink
Greek Mythology
Excess
You're Pretty When I'm Drunk
Love in the Time of Liquor
Beer Tears
Abuse
Ascent and Decent
Liquid Heart
The End Has No End
The Still-to-Learn