Monday, December 19, 2022

Book Review: Drinking Games


On paper, Sarah Levy’s life was on track. She was 28, living in New York City, working a great job, and socializing every weekend. But Sarah had a secret: her relationship with alcohol was becoming toxic. And only she could save herself.

Drinking Games explores the role alcohol has in our formative years, and what it means to opt out of a culture completely enmeshed in drinking. 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.

Candid and dynamic, this book speaks to the all-consuming cycle of working hard, playing harder, and trying to look perfect while you’re at it.

Drinking Games: A Memoir will be published on January 3, 2023. St. Martin's Press provided an early galley for review.

This memoir appealed to me on a very personal level; I wanted to see what Levy's own experiences with alcohol were and how they might have compared to my own. The first two chapters had elements that rang familiar to my college and post-college years - though no where to the extreme level that she was operating in.

In the second section of the book, she touches upon addictive personalities and how she has one. Whether snacks or drinks or work or dating, she explains how things could so easily spiral out of control for her. This is also illustrated by her experiences in the wellness field and her relationship with a social influencer. Addictions and their potential for poor decisions are not limited to just alcohol or other substances. She exhibits the feelings of awkwardness and the need to fit in that enable all of these kinds of over-indulgant behaviors. Many readers will be able to relate to this.

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