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.

This is a really solid collection of essays about having a drinking problem. I feel like a lot of these books can reek of privilege and a woe is me attitude, but Sarah Levy tells her story in such a no nonsense way that it really does focus on how much of a mess your life can turn into without you noticing.

Sarah doesn’t pull any punches about how she made it to the bottom and turned her life around. And she doesn’t lie and say it was easy to do.

I think this is a really great read.

Reading this book, I saw myself in the author. I used to binge drink A LOT from the time I turned 18 until I was 21. It’s a surreal feeling of shame, guilt, and embarrassment. Not knowing what what I said or did the night before, or who’s house I ended up at. I’m lucky that my friends and I didn’t get alcohol poisoning, end up hurt, or in jail. So glad those days are behind me. Unlike the author I can still drink socially, but I can see where it would be easy to slip back in. You have to keep yourself accountable, and have great support behind you. Drinking Games was like a flashback to my early adulthood which I never really put two and two together. I was an alcoholic back then, and I never wanted to admit that. My mom is one, her dad was one… and thankfully I got away from alcohol before I actually ruined my life. This book touches on things that are not talked about enough, but need to be. It has to be. It will help so much with young adults and the nuclear family going forward.

Reading this book felt like opening up with a best friend about a secret you both had shared but were both too ashamed to be the first one to broach the topic. It feels like a sigh of relief and the proof you couldn't get yourself to believe- that it really isn't just you. So many of the reasons why Levy let her drinking go too far are so deeply relatable on a human level- caring too much about what others think, feeling afraid and intimidated by others at work, wanting to escape intense grief- and it makes for an honest retelling of a life that readers who don't struggle with alcohol will get just as much out of. I appreciated the author being open in explaining how alcohol had affected multiple facets of her life and how difficult it can be to not simply replace the emptiness with things like work, social media, the wellness industry, etc. I think it's more relevant than ever to be discussing the phenomenon of replacing one addiction with another, or buying the right things to craft our perfect selves/fix ourselves with the increase in tiktok/instagram aesthetics peddling the latest microtrend under the guise of 'self care'. Overall I believe and hope her honesty is going to help a lot of women in a similar position that haven't allowed themselves recovery yet.

I can understand where some other readers come from in terms of not loving the format/timeline of the stories; the journey through Sarah's life was very much nonlinear and often revisited certain ages more than once and revealed certain childhood elements later in the novel. I also agree with other reviewers that marketing this as a collection of essays would set readers up with a better idea of what's in store!

I love this take on alcohol. From a young age I saw it as the adults way of "winding down". While drinking games ended with my first child, I definitely remember the days.

Special thanks to the author, stmartinspress, & netgalley for my advanced readers copy!!!

Trying to get more into memoirs and thought this one would be interesting. I have a close family member that battles with alcoholism so I enjoyed reading about Sarah’s personal experience and journey to recovery.

The author was very honest and showed vulnerability with being open about her addiction and how it almost ruined her life. I loved the insight she provided with what it was like for her. It takes courage to not only admit you have a problem but to actually do something about it.

It seemed as though she used alcohol as a coping mechanism for her insecurities. In her mind drinking made her feel more self-assured around others and like the girl all guys wanted. But the drinking became so excessive she’d experience blackouts and have no recollection of what occurred prior.

She loss her job, friendships, even a little self-respect for her actions. The lying also got out of hand with multiple attempts to cover up the addiction like saying she was hit by a car. When in actuality she had a blackout and was unsure of how she ended up in the hospital. But it was easier to lie than face the truth or judgement from loved ones.

The author covers a lot of other topics: Addiction, Trauma Bonded Friendships, Depression, Recovery, Self-Doubt, Limiting Beliefs, Acceptance, Suicide, Imposter Syndrome, Manifestation, and Mental Health

Overall, her memoir was cool didn’t really read like your typical memoir. That actually helped me get through it rather quickly. It’s great she chose sobriety before it really destroyed her life because the situations she ended up in were wild. My only downside was the repetitiveness and her timelines were a bit scattered.

DRINKING GAMES is one of those memoirs that you’ll resonate with in some shape or form. Whether you’re a 20-something-year-old trying to find your place in the world, or a recovering addict yourself, Levy writes in such a way to make you not feel alone.

Depending on where you are in life will determine how well you resonate with Levy’s words. I found myself reminiscing of my lost days, a baby drinker who didn’t know her limit and absolutely made a fool of herself. I still cringe at the memories. While DRINKING GAMES is an honest and raw trip down memory lane on Levy’s personal journey, some readers may not take anything away. But as Levy said at the end of her book, she’ll feel accomplished if she can help just one person who needs it. And not just those who may be alcoholics. She details how her additions spanned across social media, food, becoming work obsessed, etc.

One thing I appreciate about Levy’s words is not only her honesty about what it takes to be sober, but also the amount of privilege she know she has. She has a support system, a job, a loving family, and so much others with addiction don’t. Now, with me saying that, it’s never a compare game as people live very different lives, but Levy understands people don’t have the things she does.

An additional point of appreciation for me was the fact she wasn’t preaching or telling readers what to do or not do if they find themselves in similar situations as her. She simply said “hey, this is what worked for me and this is how I got help.” But in the sense of getting help, she didn’t touch a lot on her recovery. It’s safe to assume it wasn’t a walk in the park and there were more struggles than what she shared, but in a way, it sort of came off as easy with the amount she didn’t say.

If you’re someone who feels lost or unsure of yourself, this book might be for you.

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

Content warnings: alcoholism, cancer, death, suicide, eating disorder, body shaming