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) Zailckas' story relates to anyone who has ever abused alcohol. Namely, college students. And her experience relates directly to females, and the consequences that this can mean for a woman's mental, physical, and sexual health. "I also wrote this book because I wanted to quash the misconceptions about girls and drinking: that girls who abuse are either masculine, sloppy, sexually available, or all of the above, that girls are drinking more and more often in an effort to compete with men, and that alcohol abuse is a life-stage behavior, a youthful excess that is not as damaging as other drugs." (pg. XV-XVI)The author never developed into an alcoholic, but she had quite a consequential period of an emotional need for alcohol. "I don't have the genetically based reaction to alcohol that addiction counselors call 'a disease.'" (pg. XIV) "I too drank in no small part because I felt shamed, self-conscious, and small." (pg. XVI) Even out of college, she was surrounded by it constantly. Many of her relationships depended on it. It relieved her anxiety in social situations. She grew accustomed to haunting blackouts, embarrassing memories, sickening hangovers, and unstable relationships. She had a hospital scare in her teen years, and may have lost her virginity during one of her memory lapses.
An amazing story with sophisticated writing. And to think, she started shaping this novel at only age 23! Even if you've never touched a drop of alcohol, she illustrates circumstances with clear precision and clever metaphors that will leave you wanting to know more. "She doesn't know that the thing I found in her liquor cabinet has given me the capacity to be a completely different animal on the inside. Inside, I feel exotic and dangerous. I'm a cobra inside a kitty cat. [...] and I know what Columbus must have felt when he washed up on the American shore. Drinking has always been, but it's a New World to me. It's been waiting for me to discover it." (pg. 25) No wonder this became a New York Times Bestseller.
"I think it's no coincidence that a shot is called a shot. You throw back that little jigger of liquor with the same urgency with which a gun fire ammunition into open space. You feel the same ringing in your ears, the same kickback in your arms and chest. The first time you drink, you don't aim to get drunk. The thrill of pulling the trigger is itself enough. If you like the crack of the rifle, you'll be back for a second go, which is when you'll pay attention to the crosshairs and fire enough shots to hit the mark." (pg. 27)
"It's my insides I need to hide. Privately, I feel disfigured. I am ashamed of my gnarled soul, which is something no surgeon can correct. Were my inner workings exposed, I feel certain they would make children stare, and adults avert their eyes. [...] I want to get shit-faced, a term itself that connotes camouflage." (pg. 42)
"Of course, Coors isn't crank or coke or crack. And Heineken isn't heroin. And vodka isn't Valium. And nothing that's mixed with cranberry juice will score you respect with the folks who cop drugs in the public bathroom in Tompkins Square Park. But don't tell that to my brain because when I'm drunk, it purrs with the ecstasy of being thoroughly high." (pg. 158)
"The only upshot of a blackout is that you're spared the emotional effort it takes to repress whatever happened in the midst of it. The night in question forever exists like the train scene in a silent movie, the one where the screen goes dark the instant the train charges the tunnel, and when it emerges a few seconds later with two long whoops of its whistle, the audience never really knows what happened in the tunnel's obscurity. Who made love in the first-class compartment? Who stabbed the man in the club car? You can guess, but you'll never know for sure." (pg. 217)
"It doesn't occur to me that alcohol might be unhinging me, that drinking at the rate I am can induce depression, impulsive behavior, and symptoms of bipolar and borderline personality disorder. Experts suggest that drinking when you fell low is like taking speed when you feel jumpy: It heightens the ailment instead fo remedying it." (pg. 222-223)
"And I'm not the only one who has these destructive thoguhts while I'm wrecked. My phone constantly hums at four in the morning. One of my drinking buddies is always on the other end, stewed to the gills and sobbing hysterically. One says she just dragged a knife too deep across her shin, and she's scared because it won't stop bleeding. [...] It seems that alcohol, which has always given us the courage to dance in public or be close to men, is giving us the fearlessness to abuse ourselves, too." (pg. 240)
) This is definitely a woman's novel, if there was ever a one-gender-only claim to one.