Thank you so much to @stmartinspress @minotaur_books @macmillan.audio and @netgalley for my review copies (physical and audio) of DRINKING GAMES by @sarahplevy ! This one publishes Jan 3, 2023!

My favourite books to listen to are memoirs, bonus points if they are read by the author! I commend any person who has the strength, courage, and guts to share their life story with the world. It’s not an easy thing to do!

I loved listening to this memoir- it felt just like listening to a friend talk! Hearing Levy talk about her struggles with alcohol, body image/eating disorders, relationships, and how drinking affected her life in all aspects was really eye opening. I learned so much from this book!

I didn’t realize just how much drinking and alcohol can affect one’s life. Yes, I had some idea from knowing people who have struggled with it, but Levy’s story really shines a light on just how many different parts of your life can be triggered (or be triggers) for drinking.

I recommend this book to everyone! But also, be wary of the trigger warnings- make sure you are in the right headspace to be reading a book like this.

Sarah Levy takes a deep dive into her experience with alcohol and her decision to become sober. Very enlightening! Something I think most twenty-somethings can relate to - when drinking and partying is more the norm than it should be. Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review.

Although this book could be interesting to anyone who picks it up, I think it would really be good for all those in a 12-step program or half way believe they may have a problem with alcohol,, but especially for those that don't think they have a problem with alcohol. I think the fact that the author went through all the stages of drinking and has come out on the other side-healthy and happy halps. I also think her narration of how she could not imagine her life without drinking should make us all look at our own relationship with alcohol.

I have always felt that memoirs are instant five stars for me because who am I to judge someone else's life experience? With that said, Drinking Games by Sarah Levy is not the kind of memoir that is going to appeal to everyone.

I found Levy's brutal honesty refreshing in regards to her relationship to alcohol and how as a society we are conditioned to accept alcohol at virtually every social event ever. I liked that she was self deprecating and how she dug into her past so she could expose the nitty, gritty truth.

I think most 20 somethings will find Drinking Games to be relatable if they come from a similar background as Levy, for those who don't, this book will mostly fall very flat.

Thank you for the audio ARC!

I received an audio ARC of this work.

I really enjoyed listening to Sarah narrate her own story - although some people may not understand picking between the Bachelor and a recovery group, it seemed real and raw without being self-loathing and was FULL of self- growth. I wish I knew who these friends were, because I enjoyed listening to these stories so much!

Although not an alcoholic myself, I have felt a lot of the underlying feelings Sarah had felt that - is she enough? is she doing things right? and the influencer pull that wants us to hop in so many different trends or buy a bunch of different products.

Great memoir. I have a family member who has struggled with alcohol. Happy for the author that she has found life without alcohol and recognized she had a problem.

This is a great memoir/self-help book! While I haven't struggled with the same issues with alcohol, I still found her story as a whole relatable and encouraging. I appreciated this story of addiction and recovery more than others I've read because of her honesty and her willingness to take responsibility while also ensuring the reader that recovery is hard and having support is vital - opposed to the mentality that you just have to meditate more or be a stronger person to "fix" yourself.

Sarah Levy is raw and honest as she tells her story of finding sobriety in her memoir, Drinking Games. Sarah also narrated this audiobook, which I feel must have been cathartic on another level. To say the words out loud. The book. reads more like a collection of short stories or essays as it is not linear or chronological, but this format does not take away from the story. Although not an alcoholic, I could 100% relate to the struggles of wanting to do the right thing, but also falling back into the familiar grooves time and time again. I really enjoyed this audiobook!

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Drinking Games by Sarah Levy is a memoir about the author's alcohol addiction and the impact it had on her life before and after becoming sober. The story is also in a lot of ways a coming of age memoir about finding your way in life, dealing with anxiety and other mental health challenges, and learning how to navigate adult relationships. I love Sarah's honesty and ability to share even her most difficult or embarrassing moments in a way that feels so real and raw. Her writing is interesting and funny where appropriate, but also doesn't over simplify the challenges she faced. I think that more than just a memoir about her own self-healing, Drinking Games is an opportunity to help others who are struggling with addiction and determining when someone's alcohol abuse requires intervention. Additionally, the fact that the audiobook was read by the author helped add to the passion and intensity of the stories, and to create a sense of vulnerability. It almost felt more like a coffee date with a close friend where they share some of their most difficult secrets, rather than listening to a book.

I would highly recommend both the audiobook and written memoir as they were equally wonderful. Anyone who enjoys memoirs about mental health and addiction will definitely appreciate this book. Also, if you are a millennial, particularly a female, if you are Jewish, have a French background, or have had family members struggle with cancer or other similar illnesses, I think that it will be easy for you to connect with the author as her ability to relate with her reader is phenomenal. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, St Martins Press and Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to read and listen to this great book!

This is a MUST read for any 20 something. I can guarantee you will find something relatable in it even if you do not struggle with substance abuse. Such an addicting read and I cannot believe this is a debut! Levy tells her story in such a detailed, smart, and interesting way that you are hooked from the very beginning. I did listen on audio, but I can’t wait to pick up a copy so I can save pages to look back on. I definitely recommend this book, but I will say at some points I was like “Huh? didn’t I already read this?”… so it is a little repetitive, but still great!

4/5

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the advanced listening copy!

This was a fast-paced and honest memoir about alcohol use and the culture around it. Sarah Levy has her life together on paper, but is starting to realize that the constant black outs and inability to control her drinking isn't normal or healthy. Sarah pours through her experiences drinking in and out of college and the affects that this obsessive mindset has had on relationships, work, eating and overall well being. I really enjoyed hearing such a candid story about Sarah's life, straight out of her mouth! Having the author narrate her own memoir made the experience dynamic and intimate. Not only was this a complex and honest memoir, but DRINKING GAMES serves as part social critique that will make you want to reevaluate your own relationship to alcohol. Sarah is relatable, intelligent and insightful and I highly recommend this memoir to anyone wanting to think more critically about their coping strategies.

I came to this book looking for an inspirational read as I head into Dry January. Rather than a chronological narrative, DRINKING GAMES reads like a memoir-in-essays, some of which are quite clever. I especially enjoyed “A Love Letter to Vodka.” Alternating between her life before and after sobriety, Levy’s stories encourage readers to reconsider what it looks like to have a problem with alcohol and reduce the stigma around admitting you might have one. She also shares her experiences with other potentially unhealthy life-coping mechanisms like workaholism, excessive social media use, and hook-up culture. The audiobook, read by the author, was a great listen. Thank you to Macmillon Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen in exchange for an honest review.

Drinking Games by Sarah Levy is a debut memoir and social critique about the role alcohol has in our lives. I listened to the audiobook, which clocks in at a little under seven hours and is narrated by the author.

Through hard internal work and a good support system, Sarah Levy started her sobriety at age twenty-eight in New York City. From the blurb: "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."

In the author's note at the beginning of this book, Levy notes that this book is a collection of essays. This makes sense, since the author got her start in published writing via magazines. I think maybe the publisher should have marketed this more as a collection of essays than a memoir, since most memoirs I read tend to be pretty linear. I don't tend to mind non-linear timelines in memoirs/essay collections, but I did get a little confused about what part of her life she was talking about at times.

Levy's prose is quite good, very approachable and insightful. As a fellow female Millennial, I felt very seen in a lot of these stories. I teared up several times during this book; all of the stories have some weight to them. I read the whole thing in one sitting while I was packing my apartment for a move.

CW: binge drinking, blackouts, eating disorders, suicidal ideation, body image issues

Mental health + addiction + social commentary = GIVE IT TO ME RIGHT MEOW.

Sarah Levy writes candidly about her blackout drinking days, the chaos that ensued, and what drove her toward sobriety. But <i>Drinking Games</i> is more than just a memoir—it’s also a social commentary about the ubiquity of drinking and our obsession with living the perfect life for Instagram.

The part where she talks about archiving posts if they don’t get enough likes immediately…I FELT THAT IN MY BONES.

If you’re feeling a lil ✨sober curious✨, you need this book on your radar. Comes out in January!

Drinking Games will be a great Dry January book. I really related to and resonated with her drinking stories, filled with close calls and disappointments. I loved reading her stories of sobriety and how much she has gotten back in her life. A very honest book.

4 stars

I always like reading about true life drinking/drug stories, they fascinate me. And I also applaud Sarah for sharing her story with everyone so that others may get help and know there is a possibility for life after addiction.

I think Drinking Games was a good audio and would definitely recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the audiobook version of this book. Everything I write is of my own thoughts feeings and opinions. I am in no way affiliated with or compensated for my review.
This was a biography Done by Sarah Levy. She talked about how in our society drinking is seen as a very normal everyday thing and how easy it is to fall into a habit and essentially become addicted to alcohol. This is her story about how alcohol took hold of her life and how she was able to overcome drinking and be sober.
this was a great book the only thing I didn't like about the book was how she would write about one area of her life and then in the middle of where she is now she would hop back to her drinking days- so that part was harder to follow along with- it would have been a much better read if she would have had a consistent timeline and stuck to it= but this is her story to tell and she can tell it any way she wants and sees fit. Overall it was an amazing representation of her life.

Drinking Games by Sarah Levy is an honest deep-dive into the life of a problem-drinker-turned-sober Millennial. In it, she describes not only her drinking war stories and her subsequent sobriety but also address the issues that often accompany a diagnosis of substance abuse disorder. These issues include a fundamental lack of self-worth, obsession with body image, people pleasing, the loss of self-identity and of course, the social media comparison trap. While definitely targeted toward the female Millennial audience, this book is full of great writing and hard-earned insights that anyone can relate to. The reader gets to accompany Levy on her seemingly endless raucous nights in New York City where she encounters numerous close calls and plenty of cringeworthy situations as a result of her heavy drinking. As a reader who is almost four years sober, I felt for her every single time. But we also get a front row seat into her recovery journey as she unwraps the awe of experiencing life "in technicolor" for the first time. We get to see her story unfold as she realizes her lack of identity as a drinker and begins to find her authentic sober self.

As someone who is well-read in the "quit lit" genre, I felt that Levy did do a disservice to the recovery community when she condemned another sober writer for her condemnation of AA (can you condemn condemnation??). Levy said that this kind of judgement on AA undoubtedly keeps many people sick. I feel that if you are looking for an excuse not to recover--and don't we all as part of the journey--you may use the stigma as a reason not to try it, but the way she advocated for 12-step programs made it seem like the only way to achieve sobriety. There are many different paths that make up a successful sober journey, and there is room for them all. Still, I appreciated reading how Levy navigated these always-choppy waters.

The only other thing that detracted from the piece as a whole is the structure of the book. It is called a memoir but it read like a series of essays on different themes with repetitive context that is not necessary in a cohesive story. The ping-ponging back and forth between drunk and sober was a bit disorienting and I found myself trying to keep track of what point in her life she was writing about. Calling and marketing this book as a collection of personal essays would have put to rest my desire for a cohesive, chronological story.

I'm still giving this read a four-star review because Levy is a talented writer with an important message to impart. I think that everyone--drinkers, non-drinkers and the recovery community--will find a bit of themselves in Levy and benefit from her authentic insights.

I listened to the audio version published by Macmillan Audio narrated by the author and thought that this added to the experience. Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to this book in exchange for a fair review.

Drinking Games hits the shelves January 3, 2023.

I recently read Sarah Levy's Drinking Games, and it was an amazing experience. She shares her struggles and triumphs in a way that is both insightful and inspiring.

Addiction memoir is always a difficult genre for me, not because I don’t respect the experiences and struggles of the author, but because I don’t connect with them for various reasons. That was true to some extent with Drinking Games, but I did find it a more pleasant read than I have other books of this type. Sarah Levy is honest about her struggles with alcohol and other issues of lacking self-worth, but I appreciate that she writes of these experiences in a way that feels optimistic. The essayistic style of this memoir lets you know that she’s sober and happy now, so reading through her darker periods doesn’t feel so heavy.

That being said, there were some (smallish) issues I had with this book, too. Levy clearly comes from a place of privilege in life, which isn’t a problem, but I think could be acknowledged more in her story. She attends an Ivy League school and attends parties with posh people in a way that feels very distant from my life. Those are her experiences, which is totally fine, but as a person who’s life is very distant from that, it’s hard to (or even want to) relate. There was a specific moment when she writes about the day after the 2016 election and says she sees other women crying in the streets, wondering “how a man with such disrespect for women’s bodies” could have been elected. My immediate reaction to that was thinking how many other minoritized groups have also been disrespected by Trump and how simple it could’ve been to revise this sentence to acknowledge more than just her own experience. I don’t doubt that she feels this way or understands this problems, but this is why I say privilege could be more acknowledged.

On a writing level, I was also irked a bit by the way each chapter feels so neatly wrapped up. As you reach the last few sentences, everything starts to signal, “hey, here comes the lesson of this chapter!” in a way that feels hokey. I imagine Levy could grow out of this more as she continues writing.

3.5 ⭐️