Zalickas, Koren. Smashed: Story of a drunken girlhood. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. ISBN: o-67-03376-6 (h.c.)
Plot Summary:
Koren took her first drink at fourteen with a friend during summer vacation. Her drinking escalates very quickly and she is drinking frequently soon after. By the age of sixteen she had been hospitalized for drinking heavily and had to have her stomach pumped. She makes some friends and loses others during her drinking years. Drinking causes her to loose her inhibitions and change from an inverted and shy girl into a socialite. College escalates her habit and she finds kindred souls in a sorority where she spends most of her evenings drinking and doing soft drugs. Most of the book takes place during her university years and show the life of a sorority girl with a substance abuse problem.
The drinking starts to get her into trouble. She looses her virginity to a guy she cannot stand when she is drunk and has no recollection of it. She begins to get depressed and the drinking exacerbates her depression. Koren has a difficult time in relationships and even begins to have problems with her friendships. She attempts to quit a number of times but is always drawn back to the life of a party person. She moves to New York City with a friend from college and finds a fairly good job. She continues her alcohol usage in New York and starts to go further down the track to a lifelong pattern of abuse. At twenty three she decides to give up drinking for good and looses an entire part of her life. She learns that people need more creative outlets than substance abuse. One of her outlets was the writing of this memoir.
Critical Evaluation:
The book is an important read for any teen, but especially those which may be struggling with alcohol addiction. The writer is able to map the journey from first drink to rock bottom to quitting drinking. The story is well told and the details that the writer goes into are sometimes very candid. Throughout the story, the writer seems to be emotionally removed somewhat from some of the scenes that one would find would incite emotion in the narrative. Perhaps the writer stays emotionally distant because she did not want the entire story to be overly emotional. The writer does allow her emotions to explode toward the end. The closing chapter seems to be more emotionally powerful because of the relative lack of emotion in some of the other parts of the book.
The work also seemed a little bit lengthy and could have possibly been condensed. About the time that the reader feels the story has dragged on for a little too long, out comes the emotional conclusion. This did not really work for me. The message and story are important, but the pace the writer goes at just seems to throw a wrench in the work. It is as if she travels 45 mph for 200 pages, slows down to 25 mph, and then jets up to 110mph in the last few pages, which seem more like a rant than a conclusion. I am also not sure how much credibility the writer has when she had only been sober a short while when the book was written, although it has been some time since then.
Reader’s Annotation:
Smashed is an autobiography of a young woman who spends much of her youth drinking and spiraling downward. She is able to make sense of some of her life and is able to pull out of this lifestyle before it is too late.
Information about the author:
Koren Zalickas was born in Massachusetts in 1980 and grew up in New England. She attended Cornell and has a history of substance abuse as documented in Smashed, though she is now sober and has been for a number of years. Smashed was her first book and became a New York Times Bestseller. Recently, she has seen the release of her second book, Fury, in September 2010.
Zalickas currently lives in New York where she is a journalist for a number of publications. She is an advocate for young women struggling with substance abuse problems. She is married to Eamon Hamilton, a singer and songwriter for the band Brakes.
Genre:
Biography
Curriculum Ties:
Health
Booktalking Ideas:
Health
Booktalking Ideas:
1. Discuss the pressures on the author to maintain her lifestyle of drinking.
2. Focus on the impact her choices have on her family and friends, how are these different.
3. Center the talk on the trouble that Koren gets into and how this is reflective of the lives of many young women.
Reading Level/Interest Age:
16+
Challenge Issues:
Alcohol and drug use/Sex/Language
Challenge Defense Ideas:
1. Read the book.
2. Be Familiar with the policy of the ALA and your institution.
3. Make a note of the contents of the work and how they fall in with the collection development policy of your institution and the standpoint of the ALA.
4. Gain an awareness of the awards, reviews, and criticisms of the work, as well as other works by the same writer.
5. Know the process for materials challenges at your library.
Why did you include this book? :
This biography seemed applicable as it shows some of the downside to the party lifestyle that is prevalent among some older teens.
Author’s Website:
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