I am having a really hard time giving feedback on this memoir. I finished it so many months ago and yet I still haven't written a review or provided feedback. I guess I just feel this landed oddly with me.

As a Millenial (Xenial?) who know longer drinks, I am proud of Sarah for the choice she made. My decision was more for medical reasons due to medication, but even I have made horrible decisions due to alcohol. While I could connect with the author on this level, other levels I could not. My parents were not just handing me money or paying my bills. My friends always had my back even if I passed out as a bar.

I do have a feeling that sobriety did eventually lead to the epiphany of realizing that life isn't just about her and allowed Sarah to turn her life around, bit at times she sounded so entitled while doing it. It almost seemed she was acting it out instead of actually accomplishing the sobriety.

I wish Sarah all the best and keep it up girl!!

In a culture that is surrounded by glorified drinking, I think this book is really important. We do need to destigmatize alcoholism and not drinking for other reasons especially in younger people.

Most of this book is Sarah's experience with drinking and then not drinking and how she started to feel more comfortable in herself as a sober adult as time went on. I think I would have liked a little more substance with others experiences or maybe some science/social science on how alcohol effects us as humans.

Over all, I really enjoyed this book & I would recommend for most of my friends to read. If nothing else it forces you to think about your drinking habits.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my gifted advance reader copies.

Sarah Levy has a complicated relationship with alcohol. Drinking Games chronicles her journey to sobriety in all of its imperfect glory.

We don’t talk about the negative effects of alcohol enough in our society. People need to know that addicts aren’t just men in AA, the homeless people you see on the street, and others who seemingly wear their addiction on their sleeve. Addicts can be high functioning, and depending on the setting (college, early adulthood in a big city), alcoholism often flies under the radar.

I found Levy to be insightful and relatable throughout this book. As someone who grapples with sobriety and the place alcohol does (or doesn’t) have in my life, I saw a lot of myself in Levy at all parts of her journey.

Even if you don’t feel like you have a drinking problem, this one is worth the read.

Very powerful memoir about a young adult climbing out of alcohol abuse. Raw, real, and inspiring. The last chapters delve into manifestation which was also really interesting. Great read!

Title: Drinking Games
Author: Sarah Levy
Release Date: January 3rd, 2023
Page Count: 277
Format: Netgalley
Start Date: December 26th, 2022
Finish Date: December 30th, 2022

Rating: 5 Stars

Review:

This book is a memoir about someone who struggled with drinking problems. The book is completely raw and open about her struggles and her triumphs. I really felt seen and heard in many parts of this book. I feel like many people will. The main focus is not on the drinking. It's on the insecurities and struggles we all face when we're trying to come to terms with who we are. We struggle with what we want to do for a living. We struggle with friends coming and going. We struggle with our mistakes and how to overcome them. I could go on. I'm just overwhelmed by this book. I'm so glad that I had the chance to read the book. I wound up preordering a copy of the audiobook. I plan to listen to it eventually. It's definitely worth the reread.

Being an addictive personality drawn to obsessing over maintaining a perfect social media presence, while being a "fun" girl and making it all look seamless is a hard way to live, especially if you are drinking to the point of blackouts, then having to control the fallout afterwards.
The essay format worked - it kept the memoir from being chronologically boring.
And I loved her funny, in your face writing style!

I really appreciated the openness and vulnerability of the author, still I really struggled to get into this story. If you’re someone who feels lost or unsure of yourself, or has any current or past issues with addiction, this book might be for you.

Big thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the gifted copy!

At first, I had a hard time connecting with this memoir. Although it was easy to read, I found myself annoyed with the author's story, and the amount of excuses she comes up with around alcohol. But the more I stuck with it, the more I realized that I was really annoyed with myself -- because I have the tendency to do the same thing with my relationship with alcohol. Whether readers identify with Sarah's story or not, I think it does serve as a encouragement for changing how most view alcohol.

Struggles with alcohol are very tough topics. You can have an alcohol problem but not be an alcoholic. I think anyone deciding to stop drinking is setting themself up for success and I was happy to read this book because of that.

Thank you for the advanced copy!

I’ve read several books in the “quit lit” category and while I enjoyed this I don’t think the specific experiences of the author will really stick with me. She described a very real and likely relatable experience as a young millennial trying to keep up with her peers. Alcohol was a hindrance to her life in profound ways so she ultimately quits drinking which seemed to be a success for her. The format of the book was the biggest problem. It was written in essay format which made the timeline hard to follow at times. Overall I enjoyed the book and am glad I read it but I don’t think it would be my top recommendation in this category.

This one was a slow read for me, as it felt very circular and repetitive at some points, but it was a fascinating exploration of sobriety and addiction. I'm glad she addressed social media addiction as well, and the impact it can have on us. No spoilers, but the last couple of chapters really got to me and gave me goosebumps. For someone who may be on the precipice of a big decision or at a crossroads in life, trying to make a decision, those chapters were both convicting and inspiring, and I hope that they'll serve as an inspiration to others.

SYNOPSIS: Part memoir and part social critique, Drinking Games is about how one woman drank and lived — until sobriety freed her.

REVIEW: This was such a powerful memoir. As someone who struggles with drinking myself, this novel really impacted me. Alcohol does nothing but brink you down, especially when we don't get it. This book shows how hard life can be, what we have to do to achieve the "perfect life," all the while giving our lives the "perfect" appearance in person and on social media. It's a memoir I won't soon forget.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press on netgalley for a copy of this one!

VERDICT: 5 STARS

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for access to both a digital copy and an audiobook copy of Drinking Games: A Memoir by Sarah Levy in exchange for an honest review.

CW: addiction, alcoholism, hospitalization, vomit, medical content, misogyny, fatphobia, see full list on StoryGraph

Honestly, I was a little bamboozled because I thought for a hot second this was written by Sarah Levy of Schitt's Creek fame. It's not that Sarah Levy. This is a pretty typical "coming of age and making lots of mistakes" memoir. It's average. It's full of very white cis-het privilege that largely goes unacknowledged by the author.

As a therapist with little experience working with addiction, but someone who has a lot of pro-harm-reduction opinions, addiction memoirs are always tough and they can easily get into preachy territory. I felt like Levy did a pretty good job of keeping her writing exclusive to her own experiences rather than imposing morality onto others. But it's just hard for me to read these types of memoirs because I find myself imposing my own clinical opinions.

As an elder millennial, Drinking Games was incredibly relatable. I didn't have my first real drink until I hit college. And like many college students, it was a go-hard or don't drink at all mentality. As I got older, it seemed like alcohol was always a central theme of whatever was happening.

Now in my 30s, I can still relate to many aspects of it. Drinking Games is very eye-opening, and for those in their 20s and 30s (and even early 40s), it will really make you think about your own habits with alcohol.

Thank you to Sarah Levy for penning this important book. Many will benefit from it.

Thank you, St. Martins Press and NetGalley for the eARC!

If chick lit had a memoir cousin, this would be it (to me, then, the cover is fitting). Levy explores her drinking days in college and through her 20s with the context of being a "partier" and a kind of neediness that involves growing up in a generation centered around Instagram likes and influencing.

This kind of memoir has an opportunity to be more self-reflective, but it didn't go there. Levy never fully acknowledged her privilege in context and I felt as if it didn't quite take off beyond that chick lit hum of distraction.

I really appreciated the authors vulnerability telling her story of how she found sobriety and how it transformed her life. Reading Drinking Games I am sure this will resonate with many readers, especially those in their 30s who have lived the “work hard, play hard” lifestyle for themselves. Many of the authors stories will be relatable and I can see this helping those who are looking to make a change in their own lives.

With that being said, I did have a hard time towards the middle of the book empathizing with the author. The stories began to feel a bit repetitive and I lost that connection with the author that I typically feel when reading memoirs. While the author recognized her own privilege at certain points, it still felt like there were missed opportunities to gain a deeper self awareness about her own surroundings.

Unfortunately this one missed the mark for me, but I would encourage readers who are interested in this topic to give it a read and form their own opinions.

A fresh take on the difficulties that alcohol presents for many young people today. Sarah Levy’s honesty and frank presentation is refreshing, and doesn’t hide behind excuses. Her look at the challenges to maintaining sobriety while continuing with an active social life was interesting to consider. Well-written and engaging. I would have appreciated knowing that this was a collection of essays, as I would have then be prepared for the varying timelines and mild repetition throughout.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for offering me an advance reading copy in exchange for my review.

In a culture driven by alcohol, where every social gathering seems to be surrounded and connected to it, Sarah Levy challenges you to rethink the way you view alcohol.

In this memoir, she explains how alcohol infiltrated her life, and took over. Even if you yourself aren't an alcoholic or don't have issues with over consumption, you will find valuable lessons and insight within her story. I found it fascinating to get inside the reason of why people drink, drink to excess, and how we can reevaluate our relationships, social scenarios, and lives, to how they relate to drinking alcohol.

For someone who doesn't read a lot of memoirs, or knew nothing of Sarah prior to this book, I still felt connected to her and this story. It was well written, and a page-turning experience.

I thank NetGalley for my free copy in exchange for my honest review. This was a wonderful book written from the heart. The author has a drinking problem and is in her early 20's. She winds up in awful situations as a result of her drinking. She comes to grips with it and decides to give up drinking. The book deals with her feeling and her reactions to different circumstances. We also see the reaction of her family and friends to her avoidance of alcohol. The book makes you laugh and cry. I would recommend it highly.

Did not finish book. Stopped at 42%.

This book would likely be great for someone who can relate to the content-I can not. I have never been a person who loves to party or drink alcohol and as a result I've never had a problem relationship with alcohol or any other substance. That being said I have both friends and family members who have. I got to 42% of this advanced reader copy before I had to DNF. The author is very likeable and very honest, however it's really hard for me to get into this type of memoir when I find the author so unrelatable and at almost halfway in I've not related to anything this author has said thus far. I think the most appropriate audience for this book aside from the obvious (someone with a current or past alcohol problem) would be high schoolers and/or college aged freshman...perhaps summer reading between the two to serve as a warning about how quickly something can spiral out of control but also how all hope is never lost and there is light at the end of the tunnel.